Fostering Fox
by ilovepadgett
Summary: What happens when Mulder is a foster child staying in Scully's home? MSR. Rated T for later chapters!
1. Chapter 1

- SCULLY - 1

The small smile on my face that had worked its way there as I slept vanished when I realized what day it was. Day one of Operation My Mother Is A Psycho. Foster Kid Fox was coming to stay today. I groaned quietly and turned over on my other side, savoring the warmth that was contained beneath my covers and that lingered on my body. The smile returned as I flitted in and out of consciousness, almost back asleep when my door banged loudly against my wall.

"Dana, get out of bed! It's almost eleven and Fox will be here around one! We have quite a bit to do to make this house suitable for a teenage boy before he arrives!"

My mother rushed about my room in a way quite unlike her calm, cool, and collected personality. She was so excited. All she could talk about for past couple of weeks had been Fox, Fox, Fox. I knew the house was more than ready for him because my mother had had it so for about a week now.

My brother Bill's room has become a bedroom for the newcomer. Bill was away at college and my mother had no problem putting his room to good use. I wasn't exactly sure how good a use some stranger sleeping in my brother's room was, but I was a people pleaser. If the thought of having some testosterone-filled, moody seventeen year old boy in the house made my mother happy, then I would go along with it.

"All right, Mom, I'm getting up," I said, sighing as I rose from my warm bed. My mother appeared not to have heard me, as she looked surprised that I was out of my bed.

"Ah, yes, Dana, go shower and put some clothes on," she said, rushing out of my room. I hoped she wouldn't be too disappointed. I knew that teenage boys were nothing to get excited about. My mother appeared to have missed this memo. Poor thing. It was like she didn't remember how awful Bill was at this age. I remember arguments between him and my father after a broken curfew. I hoped that this Fox character would be better for my mother. I tried to be that for her.

I smiled thinking of my mother's fragile face as I headed to the bathroom.

I smoothed my outfit and stared into the mirror, examining. My green V-neck t-shirt hugged my chest and slim waist, my white laced camisole peeking out at the bottom. My dark wash skinny-jeans accentuated my legs, even if they were short. I brushed some stray mascara from under my eye. I looked good and I knew it. Hopefully, if confidence was clear in my appearance, it would be clear that I was not to be trifled with. Honestly, it didn't matter if it wasn't. If he couldn't take hints, I would just have to be less subtle.

I prepared myself for disappointment. I wasn't expecting much. He couldn't be offering anything extraordinary.

I didn't hear the doorbell ring, but it must have because my mother screeched up the stairs. "Dana! Get down here! Fox is here!"

"Coming," I yelled back. Without a look back at my reflection, I headed out of my door and toward the steps, confidence squishing beneath my toes. I could taste perfection in my mouth.


	2. Chapter 2

- MULDER - 2

She came down the stairs and I was quite shocked. She was probably one of the most beautiful girls I had seen in my life, and I had certainly not been expecting that. Her shortish fiery-red hair danced around her shoulders and her icy bright blue eyes stared at anything in the room that wasn't me. I suddenly felt self-conscious in my button up striped shirt and jeans. She probably saw guys much better looking than me everyday and it made little difference whether the stripes on their shirts were horizontal or vertical.

"Oh, Fox, it's so good to have you in our home at last!" Maggie said, welcoming me with a hug. "Let me introduce you to my family. This is Bill Sr., my husband."

A large, burly man with the same red hair as the beautiful girl took my hand, enveloping it with his own. "Pleasure to meet you, sir," I said, trying not to let my intimidation show in my pupils.

"No need for that 'sir' business, young man! You can call me Bill," he said heartily, my fear of him vanishing instantly.

"I apologize that my eldest daughter and son will not be here, but college does hold something of a commitment. This is my youngest, Charlie," Maggie said gesturing to a boy who looked about thirteen.

"Hey," he said, his voice cracking.

"Hey," I replied, trying not to remember the awkwardness I had mirrored at his age.

"And, this is Dana, my youngest daughter," Maggie said. The beautiful girl, Dana, just looked at her nails. "Dana!" Her mother whispered, a blush rising to her cheeks.

"Oh, yeah, um, welcome to our home." Her voice was surprisingly frosty. Eyes and voice must have come as a package deal.

"Thank you. It's nice to be here. I consider myself very lucky," I said, not wanting to look away from her. She snorted, still avoiding looking at me.

"Let me show you around," Maggie said, taking my arm and leading me into the next room. "This is the dining room. We usually only eat in here on birthdays or special occasion and holidays." I nodded my thoughts still on the beautiful girl. Even though I knew her name now, Dana didn't fit.

"Mom, I'm going to the mall with Monica, kay?" She said, peeking her head in the room.

"Dana! No! You are not to leave this house until Fox is all settled in! Do you hear me?" Maggie said, exasperated and sounding embarrassed at her daughter's poor manners.

"Mom, I told Monica I'd meet her! If this kid thinks he's getting any special treatment, he needs a severe and bracing reality check. I am not going to sacrifice my Saturday to make him comfortable." She said, her words punctuated with a constant glare. It was clear she meant every cruel word that had escaped from between the two rose petals on her face.

"Dana! Fox needs to be shown around the house and he needs to get to know the family! We are going to do everything to make sure his needs are fulfilled. Why don't you finish the tour with him?"

"Come on, Mom, it's not like he hasn't been through this before. He knows the routine better than us. Meet the family, retreat to the bedroom, hide for a few months. Isn't that basically what foster kids do?" She asked, her last question directed at me. Ouch. Looks like her eyes weren't the only thing that was cold about her.

"That's it, Dana. You're grounded. I won't have you behaving like some spoiled brat and embarrassing this family in front of Fox. We raised you better than this, or at least I thought we had." I had seen mother-daughter conflict before, but somehow I had to enjoy Maggie smacking her daughter down a couple pegs. I wasn't one for impeccable manners, but she was being rude and it was obnoxiously obvious. I think even she knew it.

"Ugh, come on, foster kid." I couldn't help but smile to myself. This girl was certainly a bundle of joy. She made it abundantly clear that I wasn't welcome. But somehow, I knew that she was going to give before I was. Foster kids are tough like that. She was about to learn that.


	3. Chapter 3

- SCULLY - 3

Ok, so maybe I didn't give this foster kid enough credit. He handled Mom's introduction to our family with ease and he reacted unexpectedly to my criticism and bitchy comments. Usually I'm not _that_ big of a bitch, but I thought that I'd give him an extra dose of evil, just to get things straight.

He's cute, cuter than I'm comfortable with. It was almost painful to be so mean. Almost. He's cute, but not that cute. Ok, I'm lying, he's adorable. His big, round green eyes look like those of a lost puppy. I'm a sucker for puppies. His hair hung a little in his eyes, but not like some of the stoners at school who might be able to pass for a girl if they stuffed some oranges down their shirts. His rolled cuffs accented his toned forearms which led me to wonder about the rest of his body.

"So, I guess I'll show you the room where you'll be sleeping," I said, heading towards the stairs.

"Some people would call that my bedroom, but whatever floats your boat, Ice Princess," he retorted, obviously retaliating from my earlier comments.

"Yeah, well I would call it that if it were yours. But seeing as how it's my brother's and how you don't exactly live here, it can be the room where you're sleeping."

"Have it your way," he replied, his nonchalant manner stoking my anger bonfire.

"Here we are, your temporary living quarters. Temporary being the operative word in that sentence in case you missed that."

"That's for clarifying, I was a little unsure. I think I got it from here, Princess."

"Ok, let's get something straight shall we? This is my house, my family, and my life. Don't screw it up and you don't have to worry about waking up one morning missing something that you probably value a lot. Got it?"

"Sure thing," he said, his smile, his gorgeous smile displayed mockingly. I turned out of the room and left in an annoying huff. Not just everyone can get under my skin like that. I resisted the urge to allow myself to be colored impressed. I wasn't about to let him see the new shade though.

I stuck my head in his door. "Hey, foster kid, what do you want me to call you? Because you can bet you sorry ass that I am not going to be calling you Fox."

"Take your pick. We've got a lot of choices. You've already labeled me. Foster kid, or did you forget and it's as empty up in the pretty head as I thought."

I scowled. If I had heard him correctly, and I was sure I had, he had just reduced me to a pretty face. Nothing bothered me more. "I thought foster kid was a little harsh. I didn't know how much your poor cracking heart could take. Being shuffled around like a piece of insignificant garbage has got to be a little hard. Mommy and Daddy didn't want you so I thought I should probably be a little nicer. Any other suggestions?" I asked snidely. The smile fell off his flawless face. Oops. Maybe that was a little much. I don't know this kid very well. He's not Monica. I don't know how much he can take. I started to apologize. "I'm sorry –."

He cut me off. "Don't be. You're just saying what everyone thinks, right? Where's the harm in that? I was just trying to make it easy on you, seeing as how you already recognized me as something; I didn't want to confuse you by making you change what you call me. I wasn't sure how much that bimbo-brain could store." He smirked, the smile right back where it started.

"All right, no more spiteful comments about my face. Just because I'm beautiful doesn't mean I'm an airhead like Barbie. My head is far from squishy, just as I'm sure you're body is far from looking like Ken's under those clothes. So let's stop the stereotyping based on appearance, shall we?


	4. Chapter 4

- MULDER - 4

I struggled to swallow an extremely large smile. She's angry. I did that. Her nostrils flared and her left eyebrow rose and her lips pinched tightly together. She looked a little like a little girl whose mother won't but her the newest Barbie (if you'll forgive the Barbie reference). The little girl would have to stunningly beautiful.

"What did this fight even start over again?"

"I almost forget. Oh wait, no I don't. Because I'm not an airhead. We started this over what I should call you, because Fox is probably one of the worst names of this lifetime and probably of posterity."

"Just call me Mulder for all I care." I replied, stating the nickname that was usually what I was referred to. I couldn't agree more about the name Fox. That's what you get for having a drunk for a father, I guess.

"Mulder? Calling people by their last names is so eighth grade, don't you think? If I'm going to call you Mulder, you might as well call me Scully." She replied, her reasonable reply somewhat shocking after the heat of her earlier words.

"Sounds like a plan, although Ice Princess does have somewhat of a catchy ring to it." I grinned and she looked at me, her blue eyes scalding me. "Kidding!" I said, trying to deflect her brutal wrath. This was not a girl to be messed with.

She turned and left the room, leaving me to unpack and get settled. I sighed; another house, another family, another bedroom. This was getting all too familiar.

The alarm woke me from a dreamless sleep, my head shooting up and my hand slapping the snooze subconsciously. I laid still for a minute, dreading rising from the warmth of the bed and facing another school, with new people. I groaned. Despite what may be thought about my first impression based on yesterday's with the Scullys, let's just say that I did often make a very good first impression, although it was usually memorable.

My mind ran through previous first impressions; meeting the Lowucks, a previous foster family, for the first time. I had accidentally referred to Mrs. Lowuck as Mrs. Lowfuck. Don't ask how those words got confused. I thought about my first day at a new school with my first foster family. I beat up some kid and was suspended on my first day. He deserved that black eye. Needless to say, that family didn't enjoy me very much.

I might not have very good first impressions, but it's really hard being in the position I'm in. Being a foster child isn't easy; new everything all the time. If it's not weird enough meeting so many new people, I have to live with some of them. That could easily be compared with picking some destitute hobo off the streets and inviting him into your home. Although, strangely enough, I am not hobo. Sometimes I feel like one though.

The alarm went off again and I didn't slap the snooze. I pushed back the covers and rolled out of bed, placing my large feet on the carpet. I stood and walked toward the bathroom only to find the door closed and locked. I knocked politely and a familiar voice called, "Charlie! How many times do I have to tell you that I'm in the shower! Don't you have something better than to annoy me?" I guess she more yelled than called. Called has a positive connotation, and the tone of her voice had nothing positive about it.

Scully was in the shower. I closed my eyes and shook my head, trying to clear my head of the naughty images that came perforce. I'll just wait. Time ticked slowly by and the dissonance of the shower did nothing to help the inappropriate images flitting in and out of my mental movie projector.

I knocked again. "Can I not take a shower in peace?" The shower finally shut off. I waited a few more minutes and the door was jerked open to reveal Scully in a scanty little towel.

"Char-," she broke off the second her eyes had informed her brain that I was not her twelve year old prepubescent brother. Her cheeks flushed horribly, clashing with her wet red hair.

"Oh. My. God." She whispered almost inaudibly, her voice noticeably embarrassed. She stepped back, and slammed the door in my face, almost hitting me.

"Don't worry, Scully, I have a very unimaginative imagination!" I called, smirking, the picture of her in the towel still fresh in my mind.

"YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH, YOU SICK PERVERT!" Screaming did not sit well with me, especially through a door.

"Hey! Don't go pointing fingers! You're the one who walked out of the bathroom in a towel! That towel by the way, did not leave much to the imagination! Even if I hardly had one, I sure I could get some satisfaction from that!"

She opened the door again, still in the towel. "You are sick! You get pleasure out of seeing me mortified!"

"Oh no, Scully, I get pleasure out of seeing you in a teeny tiny towel!" I laughed,

the comedy of the situation finally reaching me.

"This is not funny! This is sexual harassment! Stop laughing!" Her face was no longer red from embarrassment, but from anger.

"This is hysterical. You just don't find it so because you are the one in the towel! What would you do if I was your brother?" I asked, slowing my breath and stifling my laughter. A hand flew out of no where hitting me square in the face. Ooh that hurt. Not just my pride, but my face.

"What the hell was that for?" I yelled, now no longer finding anything funny. It was Scully's turn to giggle.

"You asked me what I would do if you were my brother. If you were Bill, I would have slapped you harder. But since you're not related to me, I went easier on you."

"Why don't you go put some clothes on? Or were you planning to go to school dressed like that," I suggested, surprising myself by recovering quickly. Her giggling stopped abruptly. She glared and turned and went to her room, the towel wrapped around her. I laughed and walked into the bathroom.


	5. Chapter 5

- SCULLY - 5

The nerve of that ass! Who the hell did he think he was, barging around the house like that! I knew I was only mad because he had seen me half naked. That was part of the problem. Usually there was a little more getting to know each other before this step was reached in any sort of relationship, romantic or not. He, a teenage boy fixed on fulfilling his sexual desires, had seen me in a towel. A ratty, old towel.

I made a firm decision not to let him see me so scantily clad until I at least knew his middle name.

I ate my Mini Wheats in silence, across from the newly dubbed Mother F***ing Mulder. He chewed slowly, his eyes never glancing up from his cereal.

"So, Scully, what time does the bus come," he asked, swallowing and finally looking at me, my blue eyes meeting his green.

"Um, Moth-, Mulder, we don't take the bus. Well, Charlie does to the middle school. But my friend Monica is going to pick us up. Save the thank yous. The way you can really thank me, is by keeping away from me at school. Okay?" I asked, my voice dripping with contempt.

If he heard it, he must have ignored it, because he asked in the same conversational tone, "Why wouldn't you want to be seen with me Scully? Too cool for the new boy?" He asked, the teasing glint back in his eye, the mocking look back in his smile, sarcastic tone back in his voice.

"No, I just don't want people to think I actually enjoy your company," I replied derisively. His eyebrows climbed higher onto his face.

"Excuse me?" he asked, the teasing unsure.

"You heard me. I don't want to look like I like spending time with a boy like you."

"What? We've known each other for two days! Don't act you know the first thing about me," he said, his voice edged slightly with irritation. I wondered how far I'd have to push before he went off.

"Oh, Mulder, don't pretend like you're difficult to decipher. You're a teenage boy. I can read you like a Seventeen magazine – effortlessly. You're not hiding any secrets. You're not mysterious; though I'm sure you'd like to be. Try this on momentarily, if you wouldn't mind indulging me?" He didn't answer, so I pressed on. "You were intimidated by father. Who wouldn't be? He's a sailor, and he's not a small man. Do I detect a fear of an authoritative figure? You act like you're not fazed by the whole foster care situation, but I am not incapable of empathy. I know how difficult it must be. So, either you prefer to bottle things up, or you have trouble expressing things. Why do I sense that it is the former? I wonder what else you're keeping in. You're not as hard as you think you are. I would've thought you'd be more intelligent than that, foster kid. Looks like you might be the Barbie in this relationship."

The look on his face told me that I had him pegged. Or that he was really good at controlling his facial expressions. I was inclined to think that it wasn't the latter, but I was somewhat biased.

"Whoa, whoa, slow down there. I almost see you naked and now we're in a relationship? Aren't we being a tad hasty, a tad rash?"

Why did he make me want to rip my hair out? He simply changed the subject. Maybe I was right then. But correct or not, this boy could easily work any girl's panties into a knot and have them talking in circles before they could say "huh?" Women were putty in his hands. I couldn't believe I was saying this. It was undeniably anti-feminist. Men do not have control over women and anyone who knew me would know that I would never say that they do. This guy has got me stumped.

A horn honked outside and I grabbed my bag, calling over my shoulder, "Come on, foster boy, Monica's here. Let's head to your humiliation station and my heaven." I smiled as I walked out the door.

"DAMN, Dana! Why didn't you tell me he was this cute?! God! He's gorgeous!" Monica practically drooled when Mulder walked out my front door.

"Beauty's only skin deep, Monica. Underneath that flawless smile and green, green eyes is the devil, lurking in the soul of the beautiful unknowing," I argued.

"Why, Dana, I never took you as the romantic and we've been friends forever. Shush! He's coming!" Mulder stood awkwardly outside the car, as if waiting for someone to usher him into the vehicle.

"Would you get in already? We're not going to send you a gilded invitation!" Impatience echoed roughly in my words. Monica shot me a nasty look, obviously under the impression that his hesitation was out of politeness.

"Dana, aren't you going to introduce us? I'd love to know who this eye-catching young man is," Monica asked, blinking her eyelashes seductively.

"Yes, Scully, please introduce us. Or did you forget your manners along with your modesty this morning when you woke up?" Mulder smirked. I felt a flush rise in my cheeks. How was it that he knew just where to stab the needle? Monica looked confused, be it by his calling me Scully or the reference to the bathroom incident this morning.

"Monica, this is the pain in the ass that will be living at our house for a while. Mulder, this is Monica, my best friend. Watch out Monica, you know him a day and he'll already want something more than a friendship out of you." I warned, glaring at Mulder and working furiously hard to get my blush under control.

"That's fine by me. Dana, why don't you sit in the back so that Mulder and I can get acquainted?" Monica suggested, and from the tone of her voice, she wanted to 'get-to-know' Mulder in a way that was not appropriate for acquaintances.

"But-," I began to protest but Mulder cut me off.

"Dana, don't make this difficult. Just be a good girl and sit in the back while Mommy and Daddy talk. All right?" His tone sent chills to my fillings. It was sweeter than sugar. She giggled as I moved to the back and Mulder slid into my seat.

"So Monica, your boyfriend is a very lucky guy…" Mulder started. I think I'm going to be sick.


	6. Chapter 6

- MULDER - 6

We all got out of Monica's car; Scully glad to be getting out of earshot of Monica's and my flirting, Monica dreamily exiting the car like this was the best day of her life, and me, reluctantly. First days were always the hardest, then, if you were lucky, they got easier. I wasn't always lucky.

"Come on, Mulder, I'll show you where the office is so you cant get your schedule and get the hell out of my life," Scully said, sighing as she spoke.

"Dana, I'll take him," Monica began to argue, but Scully cut across her, an annoyed look flashing on her beautiful face, her left eyebrow arching and her lips pinched together. I decided that I loved that look.

"I can handle it Monica. I think Mulder needs a break. We can only guess how much power-flirting his little man can handle." She eyed my crotch shamelessly.

"Excuse me, but I do not appreciate the sexual harassment." I said, smirking.

"You're one to talk! Sexual harassment my ass!" Scully said, her eyebrows creasing her forehead in frustration. Monica was looking a little irritated at being ignored. She sighed as if to aware us of her presence, as if we had forgotten.

"Well, Mulder, I guess I'll see you after school," Monica said, trying very hard and somewhat desperately to redirect my attention to her again as opposed to her best friend.

"Yeah, all right Monica," I said, my eyes swiveling to look at her. "Forget me not my love, in this time we spend apart. Though distance can grow, feelings remain; you'll always have my heart." I said, grabbing her hand and kissing it softly. She sighed, turned, and walked away.

"Could you be any more of a womanizer? You know that if you fool with someone's heart, you could get yourself into trouble, especially if that someone if Monica," Scully said, after recovering from my display of affection towards Monica.

"How do you know I'm fooling with it? What she actually has captivated me?" I looked sideways at her as we walked down the hall. Her face flushed slightly and I wondered if there was worry lurking in her eyes.

"Let's just get to the office. Then I'll go my way and you can go write Monica some more poetry," she said, her voice deep and brusque, as if my last comment had jabbed in the exact spot she was vulnerable.

"Lead the way, Scully," I said, bowing and thrusting my arm out, gesturing that she proceed before me.

"You are so juvenile," she muttered under her breath.

"Ah, yes, Mr. Mulder," the receptionist at the front desk in the office said when Scully and I arrived and I gave my name. "Here is your schedule. Just ask any of the teachers if you need help finding your classrooms. Have a pleasant first day," she said, a smile plastered on her face. Negative Ned internally questioned the likelihood and landed on unbelievably improbable.

"Let me see," Scully said, snatching my schedule out of my hand and scanning the page. Her mouth opened slowly in what I assumed to be disbelief as her eyes ran across the sheet. "This is impossible," she said, her voice soft as she annunciated every word slowly and deliberately.

"What?" I said, me taking the sheet this time. "What is it? These classes are I registered for. What?" I asked again, seeing that her face remained the same.

"These…these are my classes. This is my schedule! How did you get my schedule?!" she demanded, the skepticism fading to anger, as many of her emotions did.

"How should I know?" I asked, getting flustered by her rage. It wasn't my fault that we were in all the same classes! I didn't ask for this.

She stomped to the receptionist, handed her the schedule and asked sweetly, in a tone that hid her anger, "Excuse me, but how is this possible? His schedule is the exact same as mine. Everything about it is identical."

"Well, now," the receptionist said, examining the list for herself. "I'm not sure. What a coincidence."

"This is more than coincidence," she said, irritation cracking her immaculate manner. She struggled to keep her voice reasonable. "This is impossible. He can't have the same classes, ALL the same classes as me."

"Apparently he can, dear. I don't see why you're so upset. I'd consider yourself lucky," the woman said, winking at me. Was she hitting on me?

"ARGH!" Scully yelled exasperatedly, turning back to me, grabbing my arm and pulling my out into the hall. I went willingly, assuming that we were heading to "our" homeroom. This was going to be fun.


	7. Chapter 7

- SCULLY - 7

This is one thousand and one times worse than my worst nightmare. How the hell am I supposed to do anything if he is going to be everywhere I am?!

"Scully, slow down! Where are we going?" Mulder asked, the teasing glint in his eyes I had grown accustomed to seeing paired with his smile was there, shining brighter than ever.

"We're going to 'our' homeroom. Ugh. Not looking forward to this," I sighed.

"What's the matter, Scully? Why is it so awful that we have all of the same classes?" he asked, his smile taunting me and testing my willpower. Could he see how attractive I found him? Could he see that behind every comment, behind every rude utterance, there was affection, twisted and intertwined with insult? God, I hoped not.

"If you're there, then I will constantly be worrying about you." I broke off, searching desperately for the right words before the silence became too long and he was forced to fill in my blanks. His eyebrows rose, creating creases in his forehead. "My mother will kill me if anything goes wrong." Not a very good comeback to his first-hand teasing, but at least I had ended the gaping awkward quiet.

"Mhmm," he said, my save seemingly satisfying his eyebrows but not his consciousness. "Am I that big of a nuisance, or can you just not keep your mind – and your eyes – off me?" he asked.

"Honestly, the reason I care so much is that I can't stand to see you anymore than humanly possible. Just ask my family, I'm in my room more often now that you're here. There's only so much fake masculinity a girl can take," I snapped back, returning to myself and silently thanking Mulder's psyche for not looking too much into my pause.

"You think this is fake?" he asked, flexing, his bicep stretching the fabric of his black t-shirt. The bulge of his muscle was not unimpressive, but I forced myself to roll my eyes.

"Please Mulder, what makes you any different from the other thousands of guys out there on steroids?" I asked him, his arm dropping to his side as he let out a laugh.

"Steroids! Muscles this large cannot be generated by a simple enhancing drug!" he said, breathing deeply after his laughter.

"But it would explain for your lack of…" my voice drifted off, shocked by my own audacity.

"My lack of what, Scully?" He asked, genuinely intrigued.

"Mulder, you must know that steroids have the side effect of reducing the size of a man's testicles. That would explain your lack of," I said, barely able to finish my explanation before dissolving into laughter.

"Why, Scully! How naughty! And I thought I was the only one who had seen the other at a moment when they were unsuspecting and indecent! Obviously I was mistaken!" He said, faking shock, and trying to be serious in his reprimand.

"Mulder, as much as I would love to finish this inappropriate conversation with you, we're here," I said, gesturing to the doorway we had reached.

"This is it then. The beginning?" His eyes stared into mine. His eyes, his beautiful green eyes looked at me like he could see past my clothes, and that's not because he had almost a perfect picture of that image. It was like he could see my soul. He could see my heart beating, the pace increasing every time he looked intently like this, right into my eyes.

"Yeah, I guess it is, for you anyway. Not scared are you?" I asked, playfully, looking away, feeling self-conscious.

"Me? Nervous? The day I'm nervous will be the day that you go without saying something sarcastic. Deal?" He asked, winking and heading into the classroom, swagger and confidence shining.


	8. Chapter 8

- MULDER - 8

Ok, so I lied to Scully, but she can't tell. Even though her eyes appear to see right through me, she couldn't tell I was lying.

"Ah, Dana," the man at the desk said, smiling as Scully walked into the classroom, "Always almost late, but almost seems to be a long time for you." I'm no expert, but it sounded like he was making a pass at her.

Scully walked to a desk, sat, and replied, "We can understand almost everything, but everything doesn't include almost."

"Hmm, excellent point. Albert Einstein, if I remember correctly. I am well studied," he said, chuckling. It was almost painful to watch.

Couldn't he see that almost bald men just didn't do it for her? Couldn't he see that his awful bug-eye glasses weren't a source of much excitement if you were under the age of 60? The glasses certainly weren't helping sight impairment as much as they were a fashion statement. I wasn't sure the statement he was trying to make by wearing his grandmother's glasses other than that he might have harbored a secret fondness to putting on women accessories.

"If you were any type of expert, Mr. Blight, you would have known that I just pulled that out of my ass, if you'll excuse the expression," she said, every word that came out of her luscious-lipped mouth adding to the blotchy red blush that was settling across his cheeks.

"Aha! You brilliant girl! You do not cease to amaze me with your wit!" He said, trying, and failing to recover his slipping composure. This is unbelievable. He is still going at it after she publicly humiliated him.

"And you, Mr. Blight, do not cease to amaze me with your compliments. Thank you, but I don't believe I have done anything to warrant such praise. So until I do earn it, maybe keep it to yourself?" Scully asked, each word dripping with fake sincerity, her icy eyes piercing his body.

"Yes, well," he muttered, disgraced, searching for something to draw attention away from his solicited compliments. "And who is this fine young man that accompanies you?" He asked, finally finding something other than himself to dwell upon.

"I'm Fox Mulder." I replied, clearing my throat and looking into his bulging eyes.

"Ah, yes. You are staying with Dana's family. I remember now. Well, find a seat and I'll take attendance."

The rest of my day was no more entertaining than homeroom had been. Girls in this school had hardly any modesty – or brains for that matter – at all. All day girls had been, shall we say, throwing themselves at me. They all seemed to be thinking, 'Fresh meat. I'll be the first to take a bite out of that hunk.' And those were the best of their thoughts. I'm simply guessing, but I am very good at reading people.

Reading people has been a strength of mine for as long as I can remember. I don't even have to talk to someone to know their life story. All I need is a coffee stain of their shirt, the color of their tie, whether or not their shoes were tie or slip on. It's just a gift. The only person that has been trouble for me is Scully. She is so very good at hiding what she is feeling and thinking. Her blue eyes hide so many secrets and every time I look into them, I feel closer, but then a wall goes up and everything slips away.

"Well, Mulder, what did you think of your first day at my high school?" Scully asked while we were walking out of the school and towards Monica's car.

"Let's just say it was interesting. And many of the young women are interesting. And our homeroom teacher is interesting." I said, after thinking a while.

"Interesting Mulder? Are you always this articulate? What happened to the man of many words?" She asked, the teasing tone that we had grown accustomed to hearing from each other ever present.

"You want articulate? All right, I'll give you articulate. School was arduous and at multitudinous times I felt in welter! Many of the young women were promiscuous and unabashed about their feelings or sexual desire! Our homeroom teacher is an ass! How's that for articulate?" I asked, shooting her with words that no one in their mind would know.

She laughed. A beautiful laugh. A sound better than birds singing in the spring, better than rain falling and hitting the parched earth after a stretch without water, better than your dad's truck pulling into the driveway after he'd been gone for months. It was better than all of that.

Monica looked our way and saw Scully laughing. Not good. I didn't want to stir things up between Monica and Scully, but I certainly wasn't interested in Monica. But it never hurts to be a little over-the-top and overdone, to make the one you have true feelings for be overtaken slightly by the green-eyed monster.

"Monica! The day has passed, too much time gone by. But my heart you still have, you give it wings to fly," I said, reciting again love poetry and kissing her hand. She giggled, obviously enjoying my attention.

"Stop it! Poetry makes me sick," she said, pulling her hand away and getting in the car.

"You don't act like it," Scully muttered, her laughter gone to be replaced by a cloud of unhappiness.

I stepped in and closed the door, once again reluctant in this car, but not for the same reason as before. I was reluctant to flirt with Monica. Fear haunted my insides, fear that my flirting was hurting Scully, that my compliments struck her heart, pushing it away from me. I stole one last glance back at her, sitting in the back. She looked so deep in thought. The phrase, "penny for your thoughts", came to mind, but I would give so much more to know what Scully was thinking.


	9. Chapter 9

-SCULLY-

How many times can you say excruciatingly painful in ten minutes? 380. I counted. Take it from someone who knows. The only thing harder than hearing your best friend shamelessly flirt with the guy you have secret, hidden feelings for is trying to focus on saying excruciatingly painful for ten minutes. There were more than a few times that I wished that I could just block them out – or that Monica would mysteriously disappear – but as it is, I couldn't do either.

"Monica. The night will pass and dawn will come, but I don't care because you are always my sun. The nights are brighter, the days blind me. But your face makes it better, the bad is behind me. See you tomorrow," Mulder said, whispering as he kissed her hand for the third time that day. I think I'm going to throw up. Not because the poetry is nauseating, but because I wish he was saying all that crap to me.

Selfish, selfish, selfish. I had my chance, and I ruined it with my awful first impression. If he wants Monica, it's my own fault. Here's nothing I can do. It's too late. I got out of the car and walked to the door, not stopping to say goodbye to a giggling Monica.

"Scully, wait up!" Mulder called, jogging to catch up to me before I entered the house.

"Yes?" I asked, my tone crisp and cold.

"I just thought we should go in together. You know, so your mom thinks we're bonding." He said, his second sentence calming my beating heart.

"Oh. Yeah," I replied, turning in and trying not to let my disappointment show in my voice and not doing a very good job of it.

"Dana, Fox, how was school?" My mother asked as we walked in together, side by side, standing in the doorway.

"Fine," I said, using the word that was universally utilized by teenagers everywhere to describe a multitude of things. Fine was the least we could say without being rude, but not enough to give any details or really any information at all.

"It was good, Maggie. Dana and I have all of the same classes." Mulder said, breaking the unwritten teen code that states – firmly – that you are not to tell your parents anything about well, anything. Although, considering she is not really his mother, he is only technically infracting the code.

"Really? That's excellent! Now you'll get to know each other and spend even more time together!" My mom said, beaming, her smile taking up half of her face.

"Am I the only who doesn't think that Mulder and I spending every waking moment together is not necessarily a good thing?! In fact, I think it's awful! I'll never get a moment's peace!" I cried, desperately reaching out to my mother, hoping to soften her up and get her to sympathize with me. She didn't.

"Dana, Fox seems excited to be spending time with you and you should feel the same. It's always good to make new friends and fraternize with new people. This is a good experience for both of you."

"He's getting some good experience all right," I muttered, the bathroom incident still fresh in my mind. Mulder choked back a laugh. My mother seemed confused but ignored the strange exchange between us.

"Well, I have homework I should attend to," Mulder said, never failing in his role of the perfect, model child.

"Dana, learn something from this boy," my mother whispered, her face shining with pride that Mulder was such a perfect kid. Perfect my ass. He was hardly average. All right, he's slightly above average. Highly slightly.

I trudged slowly up the carpeted stairs, trekking down the hall to my room. I stopped by Mulder's room, and true to his word, he sat at Bill's old desk, dutifully and diligently working on his laptop.

"Hey, apple polisher, what are you working on first?" I asked, leaning against the door frame. He jumped, obviously unaware that I had been standing there. He stood abruptly and closed the page he was working on.

"Nothing. Nothing, just doodling," he said, smiling and trying very hard not to look guilty. My curiosity had been piqued and I longed to know what he had been frivolously working on.

"On the computer?" You know that doodling is a sign of a wandering mind," I said, stalling for time and trying desperately to form a plan quickly. I wanted to see his work.

"Abraham Lincoln doodled," he countered, smirking at me. That smirk, crooked with the right side of his mouth higher than his left and his right eye becoming slightly squinted, made me smile inside. He looked like a child, refusing to take a bath and conquering his parents after they threw in the towel (hopefully a large towel, not a tiny one) and gave up on his bath.

"Touché," I replied, bowing my head in submission.

"Fox, Dana, dinner is in half an hour!" My mom called up the stairs.

"All right, Maggie, thank you," Mulder called back down to her from Bill's room.

"You are perfect, you know that?" I asked him. It was my turn to smirk.

"Perfect, ehh? You don't seem to think so."

"I meant for my mother! You're the child she never had! I'm the closest she has to perfect."

"Poor Maggie. If you're the closest she's got, Bill and Melissa must be complete nightmares." He said, turning my own words against me.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Don't judge a book by its cover." I said, reprimanding him like a child.

"I'm not. I'm judging a book by another book. How can I judge a book by its cover if I haven't even seen the cover?" He asked, spinning the metaphor into a circle.

"Mulder, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but we aren't talking about books," I told him, feigning sadness. A shocked look came across his face, morphing his features.

"Well, then what on earth are we discussing?" He asked, feigning stupidity.

"I'll see you at dinner Mulder," I said, sighing at our game of pretend, and heading to my room.


	10. Chapter 10

-MULDER-

"Charlie, will you pass me the asparagus?" Scully asked her brother after we said grace at the dinner table.

"Only if you take off your shirt," he said, smiling, an evil twinkle in his brown eyes.

"Charlie!" Maggie spluttered, shocked by her son's rude demand.

"That's illegal, Char, and you're the last person I'd take off my shirt for if it weren't," Scully retorted, glaring at her brother. He held the bowl of asparagus hostage, waiting for his demand to be carried out.

"Dana, don't encourage him," Maggie scolded, looking at both of her children, her head on a swivel.

"Charlie, give the bowl to your sister," Bill intervened, setting his son straight and looking him in the eye and glaring. Charlie reluctantly handed over the hostages.

"You'll have to excuse our children, Fox, they are usually more well behaved." Maggie apologized, sounding sincerely sorry and embarrassed.

"Don't apologize. I've had more brothers and sisters than I can count and they all do. Eventually, they grow up and become mature enough to control themselves," I said, looking at Scully. He blue eyes held hatred, reciprocating from the bottom of her soul towards me.

"Oh, so they all grow up Mulder? You haven't yet." She retorted, her blue yes returning to her plate as she casually slipped in this insult.

"Dana! Stop it!"

"It's fine Maggie. They all go through this stage at sometime. The teenage girl, so overwrought with self pity, will often subject others to her pain. She will lash out. It's all just a part of life. She'll grow up. Her hormones are just too much for her right now." I smiled, almost pricking Scully with pins with each word I uttered.

"Well, that's an excellent explanation. But seeing as how you've never been a teenage girl, I'm not sure you're a very reliable source. It doesn't matter how many teenage girls you've lived with, it's much harder actually_ being _one than you make it out to be. We constantly have to deal with the teenage male, testosterone levels through the roof and unquenchable sexual urges much more than a teenage girl can handle. They also have a tendency to lash out, but not in anger. They lash out, trying very hard, almost desperately, to get into the pants of as many girls as possible." Scully shot back, her cheeks full of color. Red, the color of her rage.

"This is so much better than health class," Charlie said, looking at both Scully and I.

"Battle of the sexes, son, best if you experience this first hand," Bill said, hiding a chuckle with a cough.

"Am I the only one who doesn't see this as a good thing? Dana, please excuse yourself. Fox, maybe it's better if you leave the teenage girl stuff to Dana." Maggie said, reprimanding me for the first time. Scully pushed her chair out and stood, walking to the steps and angrily climbing them, taking her rage out on them as if they were the source of her suffering.

"Someone's on her period," Charlie muttered, forking a piece of asparagus.

"Charlie, let's not discuss this at the dinner table. We've had enough anatomy for one night I believe." Maggie said, resting her head in her hands.

Oh, not nearly enough, I thought. I wish more than anything that I could follow Scully upstairs and get a r_eal _lesson in anatomy.

I walked to the bathroom and for the second time that day, found the door closed and locked.

"Scully, it's me. I just wanted to warn you so that you didn't come out it a towel again," I called through the door, praying silently that it _was_ indeed Scully in the bathroom.

"Why would you warm me, Mulder. It's not like you don't have something to gain if I do come out it a towel." She said, opening the door and sticking her toothbrush in her mouth. Her camisole, her low cut camisole, hugged her body, curving with her hips and her breasts. Her super short shorts revealed much more of her thigh that I was comfortable looking at for this long.

"Something the matter, Mulder?" She asked, removing the toothbrush and speaking through the paste in her mouth. My eyes instantly moved from her cleavage to her eyes, an amused twinkle greeting my eyes.

"What? You can't wear clothes like this and expect me not to look! I'm teenage boy after all! You being the expert on members of the human race with the Y chromosome should have seen this coming." I said, explaining my wandering eyes.

She pulled back her hair and spit in the sink. She took a drink of water and exited the bathroom. She turned her head and spoke to me. "What makes you think I didn't?"

Ooh, boy. You can bet that I got my yayas out over that. That was the first time she had acted sexually towards me in my three day stay here.

I was always in my room when she got ready for bed so I had not seen her in her "pajamas" before tonight. If that was what she wore to bed, maybe I should sneak into her room and watch her sleep.

I headed back to my room, thoughts of Scully floating in my head; her face, her body, her eyes. Mostly her eyes. Her beautiful, blue, icy eyes that held the lock that hid her soul. I wished harder than I had in my life that I could unlock them and see her, see inside her. What was she hiding?


	11. Chapter 11

-SCULLY-

What is wrong with me? I was doing so well at hiding my feelings for him, concealing everything that I'm bottling up inside me. I might've blown it with that one, very suggestive sentence. I could have spoiled everything that I have been working so hard to keep in check. As expected, with all this on my mind, sleep would not surrender itself to me.

I got up and threw on a sweatshirt, hiding the cleavage that Mulder had enjoyed earlier. My face flushed as I remembered the feeling of his eyes working their way up and down my body. I had gotten goose bumps. It felt like his eyes were slowly undressing me. I hadn't stopped him, I hadn't wanted to.

I padded down to the kitchen and helped myself to a pudding cup, chocolate, sugar free, and nonfat. Hardly chocolate pudding, but you don't get to looking like me by eating the real stuff!

I grabbed a spoon and dug in, pretending that the crap in my mouth tasted good. I swallowed and cringed. I never was very good at pretending. I heard someone coming down the stairs and looked towards them. Mulder walked down, in a t shirt and boxers, a hand ruffling his hair. He blinked upon seeing me and squinted, checking to make sure the dark wasn't playing tricks with his eyes.

"I'm here Mulder. I'm not a figment of your perverse and limited imagination." I said, smiling in the dark.

"About that; I lied. I have a photographic memory," he said, and had the lights been on, I would have seen his signature tease face; eyes, smile, tone.

"Well aren't you lucky then?" I asked, pretending that this information didn't unsettle me.

"Yeah, I am pretty lucky. So, what are you eating?" He asked, sitting next to me.

"Pudding," I said, taking another bite.

"You won't mind if I help myself do you?" He asked, already grabbing one out of the fridge.

"Umm, Mulder," I began, but then broke off, thinking about what a teenage boy would do if they actually ate something nonfat.

"What?" He asked, opening the pudding.

"Oh, nothing," I said, spooning more crap onto my spoon. He took a bite. He gagged and ran to sink, spitting it out.

"What in God's name is this?" He asked in between gagging. I laughed, dissolving in to a fit of giggles.

"That, Mulder, is what women eat," I replied, gasping for air.

"No wonder women look so good! They eat crap!" He said, sitting back down in one of the stools at the bar.

"No kidding. It isn't easy being beautiful." I said, taking another bite.

"You're telling me. You have no idea how hard it is to look this good all the time," Mulder said, primping his hair. I snorted.

"Oh, you poor thing, Mulder. You wake up every morning and shower, let your hair air dry, and throw on a t shirt and some jeans. That's your morning routine. It must be so hard to be you." I said, trying to sound as sincere as possible.

"Why Scully, I never knew you had such great insight into the teenage male mind." He said, trying to sound as surprised as possible.

"I'm sure there's a great deal about me that you don't know." I said suggestively, almost hoping he'd ask me something he shouldn't.

"Like what?" He asked, the same evocative tone mirrored in his voice.

"Like everything!"

"Then let's play a game, so that some of these mysterious skeletons are dragged out of Scully's forbidden closet. We'll ask each other questions, anything we want, alternating turns. You have to answer the question, or you lose. How about it," He asked. I could virtually hear the smile on hear his face in his voice.

"All right, Mulder, we'll play your game. You can go first, since you seem so eager to know everything about me." I replied, pushing aside my pudding cup and giving him my full attention, anxiously awaiting the beginning of our game.

"Hmmm. Let me see. I'll start out going easy on you. What's the worst trouble you've gotten yourself into?"

"Is that the best you can do? Let's see, the worst thing I've gotten in trouble for. I'd probably have to say this one time when my parents were out of town," I paused and he closed his eyes and nodded knowingly, as if to say, 'don't all bad things happen to teens when their parents are out of town?' "I invited this guy over and we had some fun and my parents came home and overreacted. We were sitting on the couch, half asleep, and my dad came in and just completely went off. I swear to God he had a heart attack when he noticed that my shirt was inside out." I laughed, remembering how fast the guy had bolted out of our house.

"So that's the PG version and that's what I'm assuming you told your parents. Let's face it; you know I'm not your mother or your father. So tell me, what really happened?" He asked, waggling his eyebrows at me.

I rearranged my face so that it would portray the look a mother would give a naughty child. "If I remember correctly, according to your rules for this game, it's my turn to ask a question. You already asked yours."

"Do you always follow the rules?" He asked suggestively, obviously referencing my answer to his first question.

"Didn't I just tell you that you already asked your question? It's my turn!" I said, admonishing jokingly.

"Then hurry up and ask!" He said, impatiently drumming his fingers on the countertop.

"Patience is a virtue, Mulder," I replied, dragging it out just to torture him.

"A virtue that I obviously don't have!" He snapped, his intolerance quite sincere.

"Pushy, pushy. Have you ever fallen for one of the girls you lived with?"


	12. Chapter 12

-MULDER-

She asked that question and instantly I felt my heart swell with love for her, wanting desperately to answer with the obvious truth. She was the only one that I had cared so deeply for, so strongly for. The intensity of my feelings for her frightened me, scared me senseless. But I couldn't tell her that. Ever. The risk of rejection was too great, too likely.

I stared at her blue eyes, open wide and gazing at me curiously. "Well? Are you going to answer, or do I win? This game is easy!" She said, the ever present teasing glint that we had come to associate with each other ever shining.

"Not so fast. I'm not giving up that easily!" I said, lowering my voice. She giggled. "I think I would be lying if I said that I had never had more than friendly feelings for all the girls I have housed with." I said, knowing as well as she that I had nothing to answer her question. I had simply been talking in a circle, as I often did, but she was clever enough to keep me from spinning it. I seemed to keep forgetting that.

"What crap is that? Answer the question!" She demanded, her smile downplaying her words.

"Once. There was a girl, two, three years ago. She had long brown hair that billowed, like branches of trees dancing in the wind. But her family found out and to stop it, got rid of me and washed their hands of us. It was tragic really," I said, pulling a picture of her out of my memory, filling myself with her. At once, this would have been enough, but now, after Scully, it did nothing. Nothing.

"What was her name?" Scully asked, interrupting my internal exchange.

"You already asked a question," I said, repeating her earlier alibi. She had wriggled out of my question and I was only being difficult to prove to her – and to myself – that I could just as easily wriggle out of hers.

"I'm not asking another question. I'm adding onto my first one." She said, countering my counter, her words stopping my wriggling.

"So are you changing the rules now?" I asked, wriggling once more, more furiously than before.

"Of course not. That would be cheating, and I never cheat. Except when I'm playing with Charlie." She said, her vice-like grip ceasing my wriggling permanently. She smiled and as she did, her shining face almost lit the room. "I am making an amendment to the rules. You made them up so I have 'make an amendment, get out of jail free' cards. So what was her name?"

I smirked. Well, wasn't she witty? "Yes." I answered my own internal question. "Her name was Diana."

"See, now wasn't that easy?" She asked, recovering quickly from her shock at such an easy victory.

"All right, Little Miss Sarcastic, it's my turn. And since the addition clause has been initiated, this could take a while." Scully looked ready to protest, but she must have realized she had brought this upon herself because she closed her open mouth. Smart girl.

"Seeing as how you have such amazing insight into the male mind, you should see this coming." She did the signature eyebrow raise; left brow up, lips pinched. I wonder if she knows how cute I found that, how cute I found her. Could she feel my hidden feelings? Could she feel the profession of love that was disguised as insult, affection that masked itself, shielded itself, for fear of rejection, fear of the love being unrequited? God, I hope not.

"Will you just ask already? Don't prolong the agony any longer!" She begged, laughing as she feigned anxious impatience.

"You asked for it. Tell me about your first time and I mean elaborate, gory, juicy, dirty details."


	13. Chapter 13

-SCULLY-

He's right. I should have seen this coming. Sex, sex, sex. Not one minute of anything else. I think that teenage boys are almost incapable of thinking thoughts lacking sexual connotation or innuendo.

"Hmm, my first time, Are you sure you don't want to hear about my best time?" I asked suggestively. He looked at me, thinking I was being sincere. He smiled when he saw my face and realized I had just played him. I mirrored his smile, pleased by his reaction to my question. "My first time. I was sixteen, last year, and my boyfriend and I were nearing our one year anniversary. We decided we were ready, so we had sex. It was awkward and not very enjoyable and we broke up a week later. Not very interesting. Sorry," I said, knowing that I didn't sound apologetic at all.

"Wow, that was anticlimactic." He said, looking disappointed, his tone matching his face.

"Well, then what was your first time like?" I asked, somewhat perturbed by his brutal honesty.

"The same," he said, smiling. The feeling vanished.

"So what made you think that I'd had a first time?" I asked, voicing the question that had been playing on my strings of curiosity.

"Is that your question?" He didn't wait for an answer, and I wouldn't have given one if he had. We both knew. Somehow, by means of some non vocal communication, we knew. Even knowing something so trivial held significance, because of the way it had been communicated. "Honestly," he began, his eyes looking into mine, "You're much too pretty to be a virgin. Your summary of the teenage boy, which is uncannily accurate, states that we constantly lash out, desperate for some sexual stimulation. And many a lame would be lucky and want very much so to be stimulated by you." He said, his words, sexy and intelligent, flattered and fluffed my ego. I silently thanked God for his unfailing honesty. He even managed to make the male mind sound intellectual and beautiful, when in actuality; it was dirty, ugly, senseless. He could talk dirty to me any time her liked, considering how beautiful, how poetic he made it sound.

His eyes searched, looking for recognition of his words in my eyes. I felt a blush rising through my body, stopping to settle on my cheeks.

"Oh," I said, my literary skills no doubt so impressing, leaving him as speechless as I was by his. He had said, sophisticatedly, that any guy would want to sleep with me and would be lucky too, and the best my tongue-tied brain could produce was the single syllable 'oh'. Perfect.

"So, my turn." He said, breaking the growing silence and our eye contact, looking away. I nodded, inwardly cursing my inarticulate mind. "All right, how would you describe your relationship with your parents?" Good Lord! Whoever said that you can't have beauty and brains, meet Fox Mulder, beautiful and yes, very intelligent.

"Well, my father, I praised as a child. He'd call me Starbuck and I'd call him Ahab, from,"

"Moby Dick, yeah," he interrupted. I swear if I ever meet that son of a bitch who said that, I will personally end his sad, miserable excuse for a life. Of course he had read Moby Dick, it was classic literature. I continued, while simultaneously trying very hard to ignore the flashing sign above my head that read 'IDIOT'.

"I worshipped the ground that he walked on. We were best friend; until I started dating and he began scaring off potentials." He laughed.

"What about your mom?"

"Pretty typical as far as mother-daughter relationships go. We talked sex, boys, and periods. Pretty basic." He nodded, no doubt having experienced this firsthand at numerous foster homes. "What about you? Did you know your parents?"

"Yeah, I knew them, but sometimes I wish I hadn't. My mother left my dad and me. My dad, distraught and lonely, replaced her with a bottle. He'd leave for days, sometimes weeks on end, and eventually, as expected, he didn't come back at all." He said, oddly calm. Well not oddly. He'd probably had a lot of time to mull this over and was comfortable talking about it now.

"Do you have any siblings?" I asked, thinking of Bill, Melissa, and Charlie.

"I did. A sister, Samantha. She's one of the reasons our family fell apart. One night, while we were home alone, she was taken. I couldn't move, couldn't save her. Tore all of us apart. So I guess you could say that my father's bottle wasn't just my mother's replacement, but my sister's as well.

"Oh, God, Mulder, I'm sorry," I grabbed his hand, for him as much as for me. "Did you ever try to find them?"

"Dead. All of them," he said, staring at our joined hands. I swallowed.

"Mulder, I,"

"It was a long time ago. Let's just talk about something else," his demeanor transforming entirely. His features moved, but his hand remained in mine. "It's your turn," he said, smiling at me, my eyes on the union of our hands.

"Right," I said, doing my best to fulfill his wishes and redirect the subject away from his family. "What are some that you like?"

"Baseball, sunflower seeds, and porn," he said with as much ease as if we had not strayed from this light airy conversation.

"Porn?" I asked, smiling at his erratic pleasures.

"Yes. Don't ask how I became fixated on it, because I wouldn't be able to tell you, seeing as how I have no answer myself."

"I see," I said, half-laughing. "It's your turn."

"Do you believe in extraterrestrials," he asked, not wasting any time,

"Science inclines me to say no. Based on the distance it would take for," I stopped. He had become suddenly agitated.

"I've heard the textbook explanation, Scully,." He said firmly, pulling his hand away from mine, taking along with it a piece of my heart.

"Well, what else is there?" I asked masking my hurt with anger as I often did when speaking with him.


	14. Chapter 14

-MULDER-

I'd forgotten that her anger was as fiery as her red hair.

"Scully, just tell me, all science aside, do you think there is other life out there?" I asked.

"What else is there to base opinions on other than fact and science?" She asked heatedly, as opposed to my comments which were cooling down.

"Forget I asked it. It's late and we should go to bed." This obviously didn't satisfy her.

"Why'd ask a question if you don't want to know that answer?" She spat at me. When I didn't answer, she continued. "You're right. It's late. I'll see you tomorrow morning. Good night Mulder."

She turned and walked towards the stairs, my eyes following her. "Good night Scully," I said, a small sad smile on my face. "I love you," I whispered, wondering if I would ever be able to say that to her as anything more than a whisper to her back.

The alarm went off and I woke from another dreamless sleep, the overwhelming sense of déjà vu clinging to my consciousness. Wake up, breathe, get out of bed, breathe, think of Scully, breathe, walk to the bathroom, breathe, think of Scully.

It was becoming a routine that I was slowly coming to terms with. Scully walked through my mind constantly, distracting and redirecting my attention relentlessly. Shower, breathe, think of Scully, breathe, get dressed, breathe, think of Scully, breathe, eat breakfast with Scully, breathe, get lost in her eyes.

My day became centered on Scully and as the week stretched on, days lacking our daily exchange and straying from daily routine and the schedule of which I saw her, became almost painful. Go to school with Monica, breathe, think of Scully, breathe, flirt with Monica, breathe, think of Scully, walk into school with Scully, get lost in conversation with her.

Most of the material we learned in school I already knew and therefore I was able to daydream and let my mind wander and become unfocused. On the rare occasion that a teacher would call upon me or ask me a question, I could imply charm them into repeating the question and give a satisfying answer based on logic and my past knowledge. Get to class, breathe, think of Scully, breathe, daydream of Scully, breathe, answer a teacher's question, breathe, think of Scully.

And before I knew it, it was the next day, and then the day after that. The week had past like my entire life had; without my noticing. It was like one day I woke up and I was seventeen years old, the life I had lived previously almost like someone else's life that had I had read as a story and remembered. My daily routine, breathing and thinking of Scully, got me through the days faster than I had realized they were passing. Breathe, wake up, breathe, think of Scully…

I woke up and looked at the clock and instantly thought of Scully. It was Friday morning. Where had the week gone? Thoughts of Scully pushed any further inquisitions out of my already crowded head. Her blue eyes flooded my mind, as if she was inches from my face. Breathe, think of Scully.

I headed to the bathroom, rubbing my left temple with my hand, trying to clear my head and get a handle on things. Friday. Friday. How is it that I can become so distracted that I don't even recognize that time is passing? Breathe, think of Scully.

I enter the bathroom and perform my hygiene ritual. Shower and brushing my teeth. I wrap a towel around my waist and think of Scully. 'How ironic that our roles are reversed,' I thought as I heard a knock on the door. 'It's her.' I thought. I hoped. I wished with every bone I had in my body. I wished it was her, thinking that I would use all of my birthday cake blow out the candle wishes if I would just see her face on the other side of the door. Breathe, think of Scully.

Her blue eyes met my green, a conversation ensuing between them. A conversation that we couldn't hear or understand, we just knew it was happening. We had more nonverbal exchanges between our eyes than I think we did verbal. She looked like an angel, an angel that had been awoken from a long, deep sleep. Her hair was sticking out at odd angles and her cheeks were flushed with the color that greeted you in the morning after you had slept. She had sleep tucked away in the corners of her beautiful eyes. She must have heard me thinking that because she immediately reached up to clear her eyes of the sleep. Breathe, think of Scully.

"Morning," she said, staring at the towel around my waist. I thought of her x ray eyes and imagined the picture that was painted in her head.

"See? It's not that big of a deal to be caught unexpectedly in a towel," I said, smiling, my classic tease in attendance. Breathe, talk with Scully.

"Maybe not for you, playboy," she said, returning the tease. Her eyes twinkled as she stared past me at the bathroom.

"It's all yours, Princess," I said, bringing into play my original nick name for her, based off her icy eyes and her icy insults. The ice was melting though, if slowly, just as steadily. Breathe, melt Scully's icy defense mechanism.

"Thank you, foster kid," she said, following suit ad playing the nick name card as well. She sidestepped me and her scent flooded her nostrils and she brushed my bare arm. Her scent, her beautiful, natural, Scully scent overwhelmed. I walked toward my room, still smelling her, remembering her, loving her. Breathe, think of Scully.

I dressed myself, hardly thinking as I pulled my clothes on. I walked downstairs in the daze I had resided in for the past four days. I ate slowly, the food tasting of nothing, my mind, thinking of nothing, except for Scully. I wish that she was here, eating with me. She came down and fixed her own breakfast, sitting across from me, her eyes downcast. Could she feel the love radiating off me towards her? Could she feel my eyes on her? Could she see the routine I had wedged myself in? God I hope not. Breathe, think of

Scully.

The final bell of the day rung and Scully I were soon walking out of the school, heading in the directions of Monica's car.

"So," I said, drawing it out, "What is a typical weekend at the Scully residence?" I asked, looking at my walking partner.

"You saw it last weekend." She said, looking at her walking partner.

"That was hardly typical. It was my first few days there, and you were grounded. What do you do when you're not grounded?" I asked, specifying the specifics of my question.

"Normal teenage stuff. I hang out with friends, go shopping, slave away at homework, go to parties. Normal stuff," she said nonchalantly. Did she have plans this weekend? Was she intentionally being evasive because she didn't want to invite me? If she did have plans, would she extend an invitation?

"Sounds pretty normal," I said, mirroring her elusive manner.

"Did you have anything that you wanted to do? Did you want to do something?" She asked, extending the invitation that I had just questioned. The tone of her voice told me nothing. Was the invitation coming from pure interest? Did she actually want to spend time with me, or could she sense my desperation and had invited my simply out pity?

"With me, that is," she said, needlessly explaining what I already understood because I remained silent, pondering the meaning behind the question and whether or not I should look into it too much. I was uncertain for sure, but I could almost swear that I saw fear, resting in her eyes. The fear flashed and she blinked, waiting for an answer, the fear becoming more distinguishable as the seconds ticked by.

"What did you have in mind?" I asked, flashing a smile at her, trying silently to communicate an apology for the minutes of anxiety and unknowing.

"Well, there's a party tonight. I thought you might like to go, meet some new people, flirt with girls other than Monica," she said. 'Like you.' I thought instantly. As she said that, another unfamiliar emotion shined in her eyes. Pain. It was pain, shivering and shaking in the chill of her eyes.

"Sounds interesting," I said, once again demonstrating the extent of my wide vocabulary. She smiled, the pain in her eyes shoved out by humor. "Let's do this."

"Great. It's a date then." A date? Really? I don't want to be worked up over nothing, but did she say date? Did she mean it? Why could I never tell with her? What was she so difficult to read?


	15. Chapter 15

-SCULLY-

A date? Did that come out of my mouth? Please let that not have been uttered out loud, out of my mouth, to him. From the look on his face, it _had_ been said out loud, out of my mouth, to him.

I climbed up the stairs, two at a time, and locked my door behind me in my room. So where did this leave us? Friends? Friends with benefits? Relationships are a pain in the ass, especially with a guy you actually like. And a guy who is cute and funny and intelligent and clever and wonderful and terrible and amazing and atrocious and everything all at the same time. And he's supposed to be like my brother.

The more time I spent untangling the impossibly twisted web of our relationship, the closer the "date" became. Oh God. "Date". This was the first guy I had let myself fall for, really fall for, since…Nope; I'm not going to get into that, not on the night of my first "date" with Mulder. Just enjoy. It wouldn't be the first first that also turned out to be the last.

I walked down the stairs around eight, slowly and gracefully exiting the stairwell. I smoothed my outfit for the evening which taken some time and some deliberation to put together. The long sleeve blue V-neck hugged my body like an extra layer of skin. My white shorts were so short, I might as well not have been wearing them. My heels, at least three inches tall, let's just say pain is beauty is the appropriate sentiment in this situation and in these heels. My calf muscles were already cramping and I had simply gone down the stairs.

Mulder waited in the living room, sitting on the couch in khaki shorts and black converse, his upper half covered by a black tee that proudly exhibited his toned arms and chest. He stood when he saw me, his eyes going up and down my body like they had that night when he saw me in my pajamas. I shivered at the intensity of his gaze, just like I had before. Just the thought of his eyes on my body gaze me chills. I wonder what would happen to my body if his hands were on it. My chills on my body increased at that thought.

He smiled at me when his eyes reached mine again after his second descent. I smiled back, breathing deeply so that my chest rose. His eyes went directly to my enhanced bust and watched as I took a few more deep breaths. His eyes returned to mine once more and I raised my eyebrows at him, communicating my reproach for his action.

He smiled wickedly, obviously feeling no shame, since none was displayed on his face.

"You're awful," I said, breaking the silence between us. The silence had not been in the least bit awkward. It had been special, a time for noiseless conversation. We had again exchanged words without words, using only the expressions on our face, the feelings hidden in our eyes. It was beautiful, extreme, severe, passionate, even if it was soundless.

"And you're the same," he said, apparently also having to recover from our nonverbal dialogue.

"So Mulder, what do you think of my outfit, honestly?" I asked, voicing on of the many questions swirling in my mind. He smirked, giving me a once over that was really his third look at me.

"Well, your heels are impractical and ridiculous. Why would any put themselves through that agony just so that their calves look fantastic?" He asked, humor in his voice as well as in his eyes. I loved that about him. He didn't have to say a thing for me to know how he felt. It was in his eyes, shining brightly, ever present. Whatever he was feeling, his eyes reflected that. It was almost like a mirror to his soul, to his heart. His comment about my heels might have chipped my armor had he not added the second sentence. He had noticed the effect the shoes had on my calf, and with reason. The muscle popped out, and it greatly enhanced the image of my leg. "I think I'll work my way up," he said, his eye slowly, very slowly, moving up my calf, my knee, my thigh. It stopped right where my shorts began, looking very much like they would rather the shorts not be there. I smirked. 'I think that's enough leg for your photographic memory.' I thought. "Why bother wearing those shorts?! It's not like we can't imagine the rest of you, Scully." He said, a playful and yet staid tone in his smooth voice. I shivered, his words sending chills down my spine.

"Maybe that was the idea," I said evocatively, taking up his playful tone. His smile fell away, his eyes fastened to mine. The shivers that had not completely receded returned because of his burning, his blazing gaze. My smile fell too, because of all the things I was feeling, all of the things I was holding tightly inside my body to prevent the escape of any unwanted feelings that were being held prisoner inside their creator. He looked away, burned by the severity, the extremity of our gaze, as I was as well.

"Onto your shirt," he said, breaking the this time awkward silence. "Well, just another thing that doesn't leave much to the imagination, just like that towel." His smile returned at that, as did mine. "It's so tight! It's virtually like you aren't wearing a shirt."

My smile fell away again, and he hurriedly tried to explain himself. "I mean, that's a not bad thing, I mean I like it, I mean," He began, talking and talking and backing himself more and more into a tight little corner.

"This isn't the eloquent and fluent Mulder that I know. Don't apologize. Maybe I like the fact that it looks that way." I said, smiling again. My smile was so often disappearing and reappearing when I talked to him that my face was beginning to feel the effects.

"I have no idea where that articulate young man went, but hopefully he will return before the night has run its course. So, a quick summary, in case your Barbie brain has forgotten," he said teasingly, focusing on appearance and judging by appearance as he had the first day we met. "Your heels are impossible, your shorts are inconsequential, and your shirt is tighter than spandex workout pants!"

"Well, Mulder, tell me how you really feel," I said, retaliating from his harsh and thoughtless criticism.

"In conclusion, I'll be unable to take my eyes off of you tonight. You will outshine the moon in all its clarity. You will captivate everyone that even dares to glance at you. You will catch the eye of everyone, and jealousy will envelope me, because I want you for myself. Tonight, you will be more mesmerizing, more enthralling, more alluring than anyone could dream of being. Tonight, you sparkle like the stars, only a thousand times brighter, and have stolen my heart, not with just your beauty, but your charm, your wit. You are gripping, and I find myself compelled to seek your attention, to catch your eye, so that you might know that my feelings are more than lust, more than an adolescent crush, more than hopeless infatuation." He stopped to take a breath.

"A lesser man would just have said that I looked beautiful." I said, hoping to cease his obsequiousness, his adulation, if only for a short while. His words, his stunning, striking beautiful words had unlocked the chains of my captive feelings, releasing them. His poetic expressions, his lyrical compliments, his prosaic terminology had captivated me just as he said I would captivate people tonight. My cheeks, full of color, burned blisteringly, hot to touch, demonstrated my feelings at his words. No more secrets. He should know. But could I tell him? How much of that had been exaggerated compliment, making up for his rudeness? How much was polite praise? I couldn't tell. I never could.


	16. Chapter 16

-MULDER-

Had I actually said all those things out loud? To her? From the look on her face, and the blush in her cheeks, and the embarrassment in her reply, I had. She looked as though she was debating internally about what to say to me, what to say to that. How could I have said that out loud? I had only meant for it to be said in my head, passionately and lovingly, like I had been spoken it out loud. What could she say to that? Anything she would say would seem insignificant and immaterial standing next to my speech.

"I don't know how to respond to that Mulder. So much of what you say is facetious; I don't know what to believe. So often you cover your feelings with sarcasm and wit, I can't tell what you mean and what you don't. What should I believe is true, Mulder?" She asked, searching my eyes in a desperate and futile attempt to find the truth. 'If you want to believe something Scully,' I thought, 'Please, please believe that.' That's the truest, most honest, least sarcastic statement I have uttered in my life.

"I can't give you the answers you want Scully," I sighed. Her eyes instantly stopped searching.

"Well, why the hell not Mulder?" She asked, irritation shining in her blue eyes. Irritation was one of the few things that happened to show in her eyes, unlike her other emotions which she hid so well. The only time her composure and concealment had slipped, had been when I professed my love, the love she now didn't even believe in.

"Because, Scully, I am in a position identical to your own. So much of what I say is insincere, I have difficulty figuring out for myself if I mean what I say or I just say what I say. I'm sorry." I apologized, telling her the truth in the best way I knew how to without overwhelming her again.

"Mulder, can we just forget this happened? I don't want this to ruin tonight for us." She said, the pain I had seen earlier surfacing slightly.

"Of course, Scully. I'm sorry, truly, deeply, I am. I know that words cannot portray the picture of pain for the hurt I have caused you that is drawn on my heart. But that is all I have." I said, once again speaking in a poetic manner. Why do I keep doing this to her! The pain in her eyes flared again and I silently cursed my thoughtlessness.

"Mulder, save the lyrical dialogue for the girls you will no doubt be seducing all night long," she said, hiding the pain away again. It was hidden, but if you knew right where to look, a glimmer still shown. We walked out of the house, an air of awkwardness that was strange and foreign to us because our non verbal conversations took place during the silence, hung in the quiet, our thoughts no doubt enough to keep us still.

I stepped out of the car, swallowing the excess saliva that was entering my mouth via the glands on my tongue, produced by the unnerving feeling residing in the pit of my stomach. To say that I had butterflies in my stomach was a severe understatement. A few measly butterflies I could handle, but an entire swarm, enough to block the light from shining on the earth; that disturbed me.

I walked to the other side of the car, opening the door for Scully, the sight of her taking my breath away, even though she had only been out of my view for seconds. She smiled at me, stepping out of the car, smoothing her outfit. My earlier words of flattery, of sycophancy replayed themselves in my mind. Her outfit was outstanding, accentuating, heightening her beauty. The way the shirt hugged snuggly at her small but noticeable hips, the way the neckline of her shirt revealed just a little more cleavage than she normally would, as if taunting me with the wonders of her exquisite shape, her marvelous form, was almost too much for me. I knew that by the end of the night, fatigue weighing down on me, it would be much more than difficult to keep my eyes, my hands, my thoughts on things other than her.

"Mulder, I'm surprised that a man possessing your way with language would be enraptured by the simplicity of my physique." She said, blushing slightly as she noticed my eyes on her. Had I been capable of blushing, the redness on her cheeks would be mirrored in my own considering the impudence of my eyes.

"There is nothing simple about the make up of the female body," I said, the sincerity of my words when thinking of her masked by repartee. Her blush deepened, as did my fictional one. We walked slowly to the front door, the awkward silence that cloaked us earlier settling in the air once again.

"Should we knock?" I asked, unsure of the party etiquette of this day and age. My last party had been two years ago and the term 'party' was loosely used in the situation. It was more like a flashback to junior high; boys and girls on opposite sides of the room, coming together only when a bottle was spinning on the floor of someone's basement.

"Mulder, how long exactly has it been since your last party?" Scully asked, fake curiosity in her voice as she pushed open the door and stepped into the fray of drunken, irresponsible, and impossible teenagers that occupied the living room.

The air reeked of alcohol, the stench filling my nostrils and mouth, choking off my oxygen. From the look of Scully's wrinkled nose, I deduced that she was thinking the same thing I was.

"You don't drink, do you Scully?" I asked, mockingly, only half joking.

"Only the occasional beer here and there. You, Mulder?" She asked, the same half joking tone dwelling in her voice.

"You think I drink after my father's experience with alcohol?" I asked, immediately regretting it when her eyes snapped to mine, looking for hurt that wasn't there. She looked in pain, worried; frightened that she had hurt me in some way. I forced a small smile on my face and dropped her gaze, trying to silently communicate that my feelings remained intact. It is common knowledge that men do not often like to discuss feelings, even with the one they love. For me, it is different; I would do whatever Scully asked of me, as long as she promised to stay with me. It is very difficult to live and function properly when lacking a heart, as I would soon find out if she left me. "Would you like something to drink?" I asked, struggling to maintain a conversation between us, seeing as how silence was no longer our friend. It no longer held unspoken words and nonverbal dialogue, only awkward pauses and wandering eyes, desperate for the stillness between us to be eradicated forever.

She nodded, smiling as she moved to the side of the door to allow more party goers to increase the occupancy of the already crowded room. I squeezed my way through the crowd towards the kitchen, hoping the drinks, nonalcoholic of course were located there.

My thoughts, wandering more and more often, drifted to Scully as they now so frequently seemed to do. No matter the activity I was engaged in, my thoughts would become disconnected from my actions and they would find the target they searched for, without much difficulty, because she was so often in head. Thoughts of her overwhelmed me and as people bumped and brushed my body from all angles, from all directions, I longed, not in a sexual way, for Scully's body to be pressed to mine.


	17. Chapter 17

-SCULLY- 17

Doubt swirled in my head as Mulder's absence stretched out. He seemed to have been right in his prediction that I would turn heads tonight; more than one set of male eyes were fixed in my direction. The uncomfortable feeling grew in the pit of my stomach, unnerving and upsetting me, as I grew more aware of the eyes pining for my body.

This might not have been such a good idea, not just this outfit, but this whole charade, this masquerade. How could I have thought that Mulder and I could actually pull this off? As seconds, minutes, hours it seemed, passed, and the distance of time grew between his poetic professions, I convinced myself that they meant nothing; they never would. The sincerity that had glistened in his eyes had been a trick of the light, the authenticity of his words had been nothing more than lustful pleas. Everything that in the moment had seemed perfect, romantic, unbelievable, I had closed my eyes to, now that the fiery romance had been doused. It had been unbelievable; it could never happen, not to me, not to me and him. It was reality, and I had to face it sometime. The sooner I started, the sooner the pain would begin ebbing, and eventually, it would subside.

Mulder walked though the arc of the doorway, two plastic cups in his hand, his flawless smile in perfect place, and if I hadn't forced myself to see past it, I would have believed every word that he hadn't said. This newfound sensibility discovered, I took the cup, barely glancing at him. His smile faltered, but he replaced it instantly, youthfully thinking that I was taking part in a joke.

I took a sip from the cup, determined to keep my focus on anything but him, determined to show him that this wasn't some sick and juvenile joke. My eye caught a boy in the far corner of the room, eyeing me as well. I raised my eyebrow at him, willing, almost daring him to come over to me, to ask me to dance in front of the strong man standing next to me, an air of protectiveness hovering above him.

I had taken the last swallow from my cup and the boy I had been sneaking glances at came over, either having finally worked up the nerve or thinking that I had suffered without him for long enough.

"Hello," he said, his deep voice not nearly as seductive as Mulder's. I have to stop doing this to myself. No one will ever by worthy if I keep comparing them to Mulder.

"Hey," I said, looking into his eyes, which were not on my face. He gazed, almost drooling at my chest, not being sly or staring in secret, just gawking in the open. I was mortified and I'm sure my cheeks were doing a good job of showing that mortification.

"Excuse me if I am erroneous, but as I was educated, it is not courteous to ogle at a woman's breasts when conversing with her. In fact, it is not polite to stare at a woman's breasts at all. I'm sure you didn't understand a word I just said so let me put it in terms that your brain which has much in common with the ordinary Neanderthal can understand. Get yours eyes off of her, you fucking asshole." Mudler said, prickling at this guy's impertinence.

My cheeks warmed again, but this time it was not from embarrassment, but from amusement. Mulder was trying to protect poor helpless Scully from a big mean boy. I can take care of myself, a fact which I was about to prove to him.

"Do you want to dance?" I asked, taking the initiative with the ass standing before me, eyes on my body. His eyes didn't wander from my chest as he nodded. We walked slowly to where other couples were dancing. He grabbed my waist and pulled me close, breathing heavily. We danced, rocking back and forth, for a few minutes and then the ass I was dancing with dropped his hands to my butt, resting them there, squeezing every so often.

Who the hell did this guy think I was? I'm not some prostitute he picked up after a football game! What the hell is he doing? As I asked this, I realized the same question could be thought about me.

I looked quickly to where Mulder stood, regretting it instantaneously. The pain that was etched on his handsome face aged him, making him look old, weary, ill. What was I doing? Was this some sick display of power to show who was in charge? What was I doing? My dancing partner pulled me closer, pressing my chest to his. His breath smelled of liquor and a wave a nausea followed by a swell of dizziness came over me. What had Mulder brought me to drink? I didn't like it and I had a strange certainty that it was affecting my judgment and making me act entirely out of character. As soon as this thought had sunk in, I had forgotten it.

I looked at the boy holding me, putting my face close to his. I slowly pressed my lips to his, completely aware of the pair of eyes on me that almost shed tears when they saw what I had done. I couldn't see the pain; I ignored it as I pressed harder to the unnamed boy's mouth. His hands roamed my back, grasping my butt, my back, my shoulders. He brought them between us, starting them at my stomach and working up, slowly moving towards my breasts. He was almost there, just below the bottom of my bra, when someone pulled the guy away from me.

"Scully, I don't know what the hell you are doing! Are you trying to prove that you don't need me; you don't feel what I feel? What are you doing? Fuck! What the hell are you doing?" He yelled angrily, his tone conflicting with the emotion I saw in his eyes. Pain. His words made sense. What was I doing? What am I doing? Why would I ever hurt him like this?

"Mulder, I never needed you! I'm a big girl, with big girls feeling and desires! It's not my problem if you can't satisfy them! Maybe I've moved on to better men," I said, my brain shocked at the slur of horrendous words that came out of my mouth. My brain told my mouth to shut the fuck up, but it wouldn't listen.

"You could have told me that instead of making a complete ass out of yourself! You don't have to slow dance with a random guy to get me to notice you! You don't have to have his hands on your body for me to be jealous! Scully, what are you doing? Look at yourself." The pain had moved to his voice, pricking at my heart with every word he said. His words, true and honest, affected my heart and my head, but not my mouth which I seemed to have lost control over.

"Like I would waste time trying to make you jealous! This was for my own benefit and for no one else's! I've seen the way you look at me! The only way to get it to stop was to show you that I don't care. And I never will." My brain screamed furiously at my mouth as did my heart which began to break when I saw the expression on his face when I said that. What am I doing?

"You don't mean that." He said, sounding less sure than I had ever heard him. He seemed to be asking more than he did stating.

"We both know I do. Maybe I showed some sort of sick affection for you in the beginning, but it was pity, nothing more. I felt sorry for the poor homeless foster boy. Sorry that he would never have a family that cared about him. Sorry that his family was dead. Sorry that he was alone." His features changed so quickly it was like they had never shown sadness. His anger was real, hot and steamy. He grabbed my arm, and pulled me towards the door. "What the hell are you doing?" I yelled, pulling away from him, his grip tightening around my arm.

He scooped my legs out from under me, carrying my like a bride across the threshold of the house, when I was anything and everything but. He set me in the car and slammed the door shut. He walked to the other side and got in, slamming his door too. Words failed me, and I thanked my tired brain for regaining control of my mouth. I closed my eyes, my heart so heavy that it sunk to my toes. 'If he doesn't forgive me, my heart won't even be in my toes; it won't be in my body.' With this last thought, I slipped into oblivion, praying that forgiveness was one of his many wonderful character traits.


	18. Chapter 18

-MULDER- 18

I opened the front door and carried her across another threshold, wishing that the circumstances in which I was carrying her over were different than the reality. I wondered if the pain in my heart would ever dull, or if it would remain constant, like the pain that came when discussing my family.

How could she have said those things to me? I loved her for God's sake. Why couldn't she just see that!? We, I never would have had this problem if I had just told her, instead of playing games and speaking in confusing, turned around ways. Curse the eloquence way that I had been gifted with! If I had been given direct straightforwardness, instead of talking in code and avoiding what I really meant and felt.

I set Scully down on her bed when I reached her room and hoped to God she wouldn't stir. God must have been on her side tonight, because she groaned, lifting her head and opening her eyes.

"Mulder?" She asked, puzzlement on her face. "Where are we? Why aren't we at the party? What happened?" She asked, genuine curiosity flickering in her voice.

"You don't remember?" I asked, reciprocating her authentic interest.

"I think someone must have slipped something in my drink. The last thing I remember was us, at the party, you went to get a drink, you came back and I drank it, and then nothing. I can't recall what happened after that." He said, appearing as if she was searching her mental file folders. The pain inside me must have reflected itself onto my face because she immediately looked worried, very concerned and it resounded in her voice when she asked, "What happened? Mulder, tell me what happened." I hesitated, wondering if her knowing was worth the pain I would feel when telling her. I longed very very much for the night to have just been a nightmare and I'll wake up and it'll be Friday morning and I'll have just realized that the week had passed. No amount of wishing was going to get things done and problems resolved. This fact seemed to be proved over and over again as I spent more time with Scully.

"Wait for the morning Scully, I'll tell you then. For now, just sleep." I said, as she closed her eyes and breathing became slow and steady again, sleep claiming her. I ran my fingers through her hair, and leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "Goodnight. I dread the morning, but don't worry. I still love you."

I flung myself on my bed and replayed the evening's events in my mind. I had told Scully I loved her, I had then been snubbed by her, and she danced very seductively with a guy she just met, letting him touch her, and then I interrupted and brought her here. The only word that constantly been in my thoughts had been ouch, and the only phrase in my thoughts had been what is she doing, and they still were.

I now knew that her drink had been spiked and someone had put something in there that they shouldn't have. But my father once told me that alcohol doesn't change who we are or how we think, it just brings out into the open things we've been lying to ourselves about. Maybe Scully had felt this way this whole time. Maybe she didn't. For likely the thousandth time, I cursed my inability to read her.

Pain had been the constant feeling and had gone hand in hand with the 'ouch' I was thinking. Why did she cause me to feel the best things and the worst things at the same time? I was overwhelmed with pain tonight, when usually I was overwhelmed with love. Is this what love was? I pondered this thought until sleep overtook me.

The sunlight that shown into my room through my open blinds that had been forgotten in light of last night's catastrophe acted as a stimulus, waking me from a plagued slumber. Memories, horrible, agonizing memories of last night's events eddied in my head, giving me the dizzy feeling that one gets from standing too abruptly after sitting for too long. The broken-heartedness that walked hand in hand with the happenings of last night had not worn off yet, nor had the feeling of fear that had been instilled in me by Scully's abuse. The fear in me almost outweighed the pain because if she did not reciprocate my feelings, I would feel more pain than this, much more than I could handle or bear.

I turned on my other side, letting the sun shine on my face, hoping the heat would evaporate the cornucopia of problems I was drowning in. The sensation of wishing for things to be different than they were shrouded me again, as it had numerous times when things went awry with Scully and I.

I stayed in my bed, lingering longer than normal, dreading getting up, knowing that once I did; there was no way to deny that last night had happened. But as long as I stayed in bed, the longer it could have been an awful nightmare, one of the worst I had dreamt. The sooner I did get out of bed, the sooner I would have to tell Scully, the sooner I would have to undergo the pain of recounting the events of last, the sooner I would begin to find closure. The last thought, the one of closure, drove my unwilling body to excavate itself from the confines of the sheet, from the unrealistic sense of well-being that dwelled beneath the covers and cloaked my consciousness, filling it with false thoughts of happiness. I felt anything and everything but happiness as I made his way to the bathroom, thoughts of Scully – the tone of her voice last night, the look of her face last night, the indignation in her eyes last night – fogged my brain.

The door to the bathroom was closed and the sensation of irony worked its way into my twisted thoughts of Scully. The beginning of our friendship had come from conversation outside this room. It was holy, its significance far greater than anything I had ever found important, this room taking precedence over anything else that was sacred or righteous. But even as I thought this, I wondered if it was true, because the pain I was feeling now had also spurred because of the conversations outside this room. As I came to the door, I – for at least the third time since living with this family – found it closed and locked.

Hope burned in me, almost as heatedly as the anger in me had last night, inspired by Scully's drunken slurs. I hoped that it was her in there, steaming the bathroom with her breath, fogging the mirror with the heat of her beauty, gracing the sacred room with her wondrous presence. I hoped too, that it was not her in the room. The sooner I saw her, the sooner I would have to explain and everything I had dreaded while lying in bed would all come sooner. But the hope that it was her burned more furiously, outshining the negative hope and when I knocked, I held my breath, now going a step past hope to prayer.

"Just a minute," an all too familiar voice called from behind the door, the sound of the voice like reopening a painful wound and like being cured of a terminal disease simultaneously. The way her voice affected me was exactly like her being affected me. She pained me; hurt me more than I had in my life, driving me closer and closer towards the edge, while at the same time, she made me happier than I had ever been or will ever be. Just the knowledge that I would see her face was enough to keep me happy for a lifetime.

She opened the door, drying her hair roughly with a towel, her hair dripping and the mirrors in the bathroom steamy and foggy like I had hoped. This perturbed me. Whenever I was around her and I hoped with all of the strength I had in my body, put my entire heart into the thing I was hoping for, the hope was not in vain. But when I wished, wished with all my 'birthday cake blow out the candles' wishes, nothing. The sight of her, the beautiful, unbelievable sight of her slowly began to heal my wounded heart.


	19. Chapter 19

-SCULLY- 19

"We need to talk," he said as I walked out of the bathroom, towel in my hand, heart in my toes, brain up my butt. I had no idea what to think or what to feel. For some reason that I couldn't remember, I felt pain, triggered by the image of his face. My head was as foggy as the mirror of the bathroom; I couldn't decipher the cryptic codes in which I was thinking. The memories of last night, which seemed to hold excruciating pain for the boy, almost a man, standing before me, were noting more than blurs. No matter how hard I urged my tired and twisted brain, it would not remember.

"I was going to say the same thing. Great minds think alike. Although that statement doesn't work here seeing as how your mind isn't all that great." I prodded playfully, hoping to coerce maybe a chuckle out of that. Had the circumstances been any different, my words may have coaxed at least a smile, but seeing as how nightmare had become reality, his face remained solemn and grim.

"Scully, don't make jokes. You have no idea how hard this is going to be for me. I know you had little if any control over what you did last night, but that doesn't erase the fact that it did happen, no matter how hard we wish it hadn't," he said. The pain in his eyes forced my mind to remember that the pain had present last night, only maximized, greatly. The pain that had been visible last night had been the worst pain I had seen in his eyes before, the strongest emotion I had ever seen in anyone's eyes before. His words about wishing that last night's events hadn't taken place frightened me. Mulder was not the kind of guy who regretted and I knew this after just a week. If he regretted what had played out last night, it was big, and most likely not good.

"Tell me everything, Mulder, tell me what happened." I said, as we walked to my room. We sat on the bed and the words fell from his mouth like a flood falls from the sky. They were a jumbled mess, confused and mixed around, holding none of the fluency that was usually present in Mulder's speech. The words that fell from his spluttering mouth hurt, like needles being stabbed into my heart. Prick, prick, prick goes his words at my heart. Drip, drip, drip goes the blood that comes from the holes being made in my most vital organ.

His recount compelled my mind to walk down the memory lane of last night. The dancing, the kisses, the boy's hands overflowed back into my head, making it hard for me to remember; Mulder pulling us apart, my heartless, thoughtless, cruel, cold, unbelievably vindictive words, him carrying me. The pain came almost as face as last night's awful memories, filling me up, surrounding me with pain just as bad if not worse than the pain that stared at me in Mulder's eyes.

When he had finished his awful tale, no words that would hold any meaning came to me. We sat in silence, but unlike last night, the silence was not uncomfortable. Our eyes communicated what words could not, the quiet once again welcomed. The sorrow I felt was reflected in my eyes, I knew it was for I had to consciously let my guard down so that it would show, and he would see.

"Mulder," I said, saying his name so that he would know that he – and the pain inside him – was in my head, his pain also inside me. "I don't know if there are any words that can describe what either of us is feeling at this moment, just as words cannot express my remorse for my actions last night. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you would put yourself through the pain, just so that I could know what happened. I am glad that you told me, for it would have been more difficult coming from someone else, someone I cared less about. You told me once that words cannot portray the picture of pain for the hurt I have caused you that is drawn on my heart. I will say what you said to me, the words simple, honest. Words are all I have."

"Scully, that was almost as if it had come from my own mouth, the words sliding off my own tongue. And I thought I was the only one who possessed a way with elegiac dialogue. I have again been proven wrong by you. You are the outlier in more statements than I can count." He said, sincerity replacing the pain in his eyes, our hurt momentarily forgotten.

"Mulder, I think that we are both a little vulnerable right now, and we both know what can happen when two such as ourselves are exposed as we are. The results of what might happen would not be good for either of us, nor would it be particularly useful in our housing situation, so I do suggest that you stop trying to seduce me. That only works when I am intoxicated," I said, smothering giggles under my breath.

"My dear Scully, I was simply following suit. I did not want to seem rude by dismissing your foreplay and ignoring your desperate please for attention." He said, stifling giggles of his own.

"I do believe that now is not the best time for us to be discussing sexual innuendo or its effects on you or me. I believe that in light of the situation, we should separate from each other and spend some time reflecting on or feelings. I'll see you later," I said, shooing him towards the door when he looked as if he might protest.

"And I do believe that this is the rudest treatment I have ever received after something like last night," he said, laughing to show that he was not sincere. Even thought he did mean his words, they hurt, cutting deeply because of the images I was forced to replay in my mind long after he had gone, regretting every move beginning after he confessed to me some of his feelings in the living room.

In the time that Mulder and I spent mulling over our feelings, I blow dried my hair, finished my outfit for the day and actually did what I suggested we do. I thought long and hard about the feelings I was bottling up inside my tiny body, the overpowering feelings I secretly harbored for Mulder underneath my sarcasm. Sarcasm was not only his defense mechanism, but my own as well.

When we spoke sarcastically to one another, we were avoiding discussing the inevitable attraction we both felt towards each other. It was understandable for him not to want to talk about it – he was after all a teenage boy, and no enhanced vocabulary and lyrical was with words was going to change that – but me, I didn't understand why I kept evading my true feelings. I was almost as dishonest with myself as I was with Mulder when it came to how I felt.

I loved him, passionately, with a fire of affection burning inside my very soul, fueled and light by his friendship. I wanted so much more than what we had now, and I knew that now, even if I didn't before. The first step towards recovery is realizing that you have a problem: I was in denial; but no longer. I had finally recognized that lying to myself was still lying, and that lying wasn't going to solve any of my internal problems. I wanted to have a relationship with Mulder, and now he needed to know now that I did.

I knocked on his closed door, taking in a deep breath that might very well come out in words that alerted Mulder of my intense feelings for him. He opened and the breath rushed right out of me. 'How could I have thought that I could just waltz up and tell him 'Oh yeah, by the way Mulder, I think I'm in love with you,' that would go over well!' I internally admonished myself for not having fully thought this out. Love was often spontaneous, things done on a whim when in love, so maybe I could use this to my advantage.

"Why Scully, I do believe that you knocked on my door, not the other way around. Usually when someone knocks on someone else's door, there is something they would like to say, something they would like to do?" He prompted, and amused grin on his face at my pause.

"Mulder, what I am about to say is very difficult for me, so I'd really appreciate if you would just let me get my words out, and then you can laugh at them if you still feel like it when I am finished." I cleared my throat, knowing that by the look of genuine curiosity on his face, there was no turning back. This was it. I was going to tell Mulder that I loved him. "You are the most aggravating, frustrating, infuriating person in the world sometimes. You are arrogant, stubborn, self-satisfied, and there aren't enough synonyms for the words 'impossible'. But while you frustrate me like no one else has, you make me happier than anyone else ever has. The time we spend laughing, joking, talking, even just sitting together in silence, is the best part of my day. You have no idea how hard it is to be so dependent on someone. I want, I need to see you on a daily basis and it frightens me because I am used to being so independent and I'm _not_ used being so desperate and relying so much on anyone other than myself. I think that's why I've been hiding my feelings from you, from myself. The things that I'm experiencing scare me, terrify me, and if I admit them to myself and then say them out loud, they are true. I think that I'm ready for you to know. I think…Mulder; I think that I'm in love with you." I said, slurring out my last words and saying them much too quickly. His expression remained neutral and his eyes, oddly enough were silent and secretive, revealing none of his inner thoughts and feelings. "I know it's not as articulate or eloquent or poetic or –,"

"It was beautiful," he said, looking at the floor, his voice deep and unlike him. "Yesterday was the scariest day of my life. I told you how I felt, and instead of not returning my feelings, you didn't believe in them. And then I was so worried that you were dancing with that guy and ignoring me, just so that I would get the message that my feelings were unrequited. I feel like I should tell you how I feel again."

"I know how you feel; I got all of that beauteous language yesterday. I don't need you to say it again." I said, trying to ease his need to speak.

"I don't know what you say," he said, sounding confused, seeing as how he always had something to say in a wonderfully eloquent way.

"Then Mulder, for the first time in your life, don't say anything," I said, and I leaned in and kissed him softly, the tenderness of our hearts equated into our lips. His lips were soft, and warm, and welcoming, and I coaxed his mouth open slightly, our tongues dancing faintly together. The love that was communicated through the kiss from him almost knocked over, but I was not scared by the extremity of his feelings, for I knew he was feeling the same from me. We stood in his doorway, our lips locked in a passionate exchange, speaking with each other without words instead of our eyes. His hands snaked around my back and his large warm hand placed itself on the small of my back, gently holding me. My arms reached to his shoulders, grasping his neck, gripping it possessively. Although the kiss was soft and delicate, it was intense, severe.

The sound of a throat clearing itself echoed throughout my head entering through my ear, and I opened my eyes, not pulling away from Mulder to see who it was. We broke apart from each other, arms dropping at our sides as we took in the sight of my mother, standing at the end of the hall, staring at us. She shook her head slightly and turned and went down the stairs.

"That was more than a little uncomfortable," Mulder said, reaching his hand up to scratch his head.

"Maybe just a little. But it's probably good that she stopped us. I don't know if you or I would have been able to had we continued. Passion is remarkable, until it makes you do something you didn't want to, or hadn't planned to." I said, admitting to him as much to myself. I had promised that I was going to make an effort to share with him what was on my mind instead of keeping secrets.

"You seem to know a lot about how things can go downhill when you're vulnerable or too intense with physical contact. Is that just your amazing insight coming into play or is that personal experience speaking?" He asked, raising his eyebrows at me.

"I think that I've told you enough about myself for one day. Maybe tomorrow," I said, wishing that I could kiss him again, but knowing that it was better for both of us if I just walked away.


	20. Chapter 20

-MULDER- 20

I collapsed onto my bed in a heap of unsorted emotions. She felt the same way; there was no doubt about her feelings now. Her lips were so soft, and my hand fit perfectly into the small of her back, like it was engineered specifically for my hand to fit into it. Unlike Scully, I wished that her mother had not interrupted our embrace, even though I knew that her words about the dangers of passion were true.

So where did this leave us? We lived in the same house and had kissed in my doorway. We were more than friends, I knew that much. I had wanted to be more than friends since the first moment I saw her. Although I do believe in a lot of things, love at first sight was not listed among my beliefs; and then I met her.

The love I felt for her was like a seed, and when I saw her it was planted. As I grew to know her better and we spent more time together, the seed grew and blossomed beautifully. At our kiss, the bloom had exploded, planting dozens more seeds and overwhelming me with love for her. It was almost unreal how deeply I cared for her.

The passion that had been transmitted through the kiss was immense and stunning. The kiss had been simple and soft, yet I had poured my soul and all of my feelings for her into it, and it was the most intense thing that I have ever experienced. Of all the kisses, of all the sexual acts, and physical encounters, this topped them all, knocking the stack over and hiding everything else away under the dusty bottom of the couch of my life.

Today, unlike last night which was probably tied with the day Samantha was taken and the events that followed the day as the worst day of my life, today was spectacular and stunning. Her confession, while not containing the impeccable language that mine did, it was just as beautiful, if not more so. The raw emotion that shown in her eyes and flew from her words held more significance than my lyrically enhanced speech ever could. It had come from her heart, and you could hear that by the way her voice broke, the way she paused, no doubt trying to sift through her confusing emotions.

Today was beginning to make yesterday all just a memory, buried by the happiness of right now. Looks like the future can erase the past. She made it happen. She makes a lot happen, things that I never even dared to dream in my wildest thoughts, because I had some grasp of reality even in my unconsciousness. Looks like laws of reality didn't apply to Scully, and I silently thanked God that was so.

I had her, and I was never going to let her go. But would she be okay with that? Was she content to be with me, and no one else? I finally had her, finally I could put my arms around her, finally I could put lips of hers, finally I could my hand on the small of her back, where it rightfully belonged. But now that I had her, what would things be like, and would they even change?


	21. Chapter 21

-SCULLY- 21

"Hello, Dana," my mother said as she entered the kitchen where I was helping myself to another pudding cup. My stomach was kind of upset and I was hoping that the instant puke inducer would relieve some of the queasiness.

"Hey Mom," I said, opening the pudding, the aroma already easing my stomach. Maybe, if I was lucky and God was in good spirits, I wouldn't have to eat it.

"I've been meaning to talk to you," she said, slowly. I stopped opening the pudding and all thoughts about it flew from my head. Here we go. Since she caught Mulder and I kissing yesterday, things between my mother and I had been semi strained. She avoided things that she usually would have pounced upon as a chance to talk to me. Now she was going to lecture. Like I didn't know the risk having a relationship like was. "Yesterday, when you and Mulder were," she began, but stopped, I think waiting for me to fill in the blank.

"Kissing?" I prompted, trying desperately to find the word she was looking for so that this prolonged agony would wrap up as quickly as possible.

"Yes, you were kissing I guess." She said, her voice sounding as if that word did not completely satisfy her.

"What do you mean 'I guess'? That's what we were doing. We were kissing, Mom," I said, exasperation peeking out in my voice.

"Yes. I suppose so. But you were kissing for a long time, and it seemed very extreme," my mother said, sounding somewhat flustered and panicky.

"Mom, call it what you want, but we were kissing, nothing more, nothing less," I said, smiling as I thought of Mulder. I brushed my fingers of my lips, thinking of his pressing to mine, soft and wonderful. He was indescribable, almost as much as my feelings for him were. Since we had kissed, words that appropriately depicted the emotions that I was feelings towards him, for him, did not readily come. I was at a loss for words, just as Mulder had been before our kiss.

"Yes, dear, but I'm not sure if this is the best idea. How long have you been seeing each other?" She asked, the maternal worry present every way imaginable. It was to be expected. What mother wouldn't be somewhat perturbed by the sight of her teenage daughter and a boy they were fostering kissing in the doorway of his bedroom? Any normal mother would, even one laid back and a bit of a romantic like my mother.

"We aren't seeing each other! It was one kiss!" I replied, exasperatedly trying to get her to understand my position, and failing miserably.

"Dana, even between teenagers a kiss means something. Don't deny what we can all see."

"There is nothing to see! Please enlighten me, how do you see something that isn't there?" I asked, lashing out. Was I missing something? Was there as sign stuck to my back? What could everyone see that I couldn't?

"Dana, there's no need to be rude. I'm simply stating that you should not take this relationship lightly. If anything between you and Fox goes awry, think how awkward living together and sharing all the same classes will be." My mother pointed out, admonishing me for my moment of anger. I studied her position. If things did end badly, she would be one of the most likely candidates to reap what we had so poorly sown. She didn't deserve that. She was right. I had to be careful.

"You're right Mom. Mulder and I need to take a step back and examine very carefully what direction this relationship is headed." I said, nodding, my actions agreeing with her as well as my words.

"So you admit that you would like to have a relationship with him? You want something more than friendship? If that's so, you couldn't have made a better choice in my opinion. Fox is so courteous, a real gentlemen," she continued about Mulder's perfection and I tuned her out, disagreeing while simultaneously agreeing with her. Mulder could be a knight in shining armor at times, but having said that, he could also have horns, a pitchfork, and a pointy tail.

"I really do think that I would like Mulder and I to go somewhere," I said, when she had finished her rambling, adoring monologue.

"I would be pleased to see that. You two would be excellent for each other. You are so serious, so demure, and if you'll figure me, a little uptight sometimes. He rounds out your sharp edges. He's fun and laid back. You complete each other," she said, dreamily clasping her hands underneath her chin. There was that romantic part of her. My mother, the Matchmaker. She always did have a thing for Fiddler on the Roof.

"Please Mom, wait until I get some food in my stomach. You know how I hate those dry heaves." I said, rolling my eyes at her. She glared at me. I held up my hands in surrender.

"Now that we have the basis of your feelings resolved," she began. When exactly did we do this? "We have a completely different conversation to begin. With you two in a relationship, the age you are at, and the housing situation, it would be more than convenient for you two to engage in sexual activities, right under your father and my noses." She looked right into my eyes when she said 'sexual activities', like this was supposed to embarrass me or something. It did, but I wasn't about to let her see that.

"Mom, trust me, we just kissed. Sex is the last thing on my mind. I can't speak for Mulder," I said, smiling as I thought of his jokes and innuendo. I really could speak for him. I knew that he respected me and my wishes too much to do anything that would hurt me.

"Oh, Dana, be reasonable. It's not like you haven't thought of him sexually," she said suggestively, waggling her eyebrows at me. I instantly thought of the day he caught me in a towel and then the day I caught him in one. She was right again. The scoreboard now read Mom – 2, Dana – 0. I could never win.

"Mom! What are you insinuating?" I asked, waggling my eyebrows right back.

"I'm not insinuating anything. I'm merely stating that I was a teenage girl once. I know what you're feeling and the kind of things that a boy like Fox stirs up inside you. And I'm saying that teenage boys aren't the only ones with sex on their mind." My mother grinned wickedly and winked at me. I was tremendously surprised, slightly disturbed, and mentally changing to scoreboard to Mom – 3. Anytime my mother talked about her days as a pubescent young adult, I usually tuned her out. Rude, yes, but who wants to hear about their parent's glory days? That's what bingo nights in the nursing homes are for.

"Mom, I never took you for perverse," I said, giggling slightly. My mother never ceased to surprise me.

"There are many things you'd never take me for, but I used to be or still am," she teased, almost begging me to ask her. But she had already won, the scoreboard standing. I wouldn't admit defeat, and I wouldn't throw her a bone.

"Is this where you tell me you've secretly been living a double life and you're some secret agent and I was the product of some one night stand?" I asked playfully, hiding the white flag or surrender.

"You were not the product of a one night stand, you smart-aleck. You were the product of one night of passion," she said smiling, an unfamiliar suggestive tone creeping in her voice.

"EWW! Mom!" I said, screaming wildly. I did **not **need to hear that. Not at all. She winked at me and I bolted from the room. I was feeling much better, much less queasy after that discussion with my mother. I think I threw up in my mouth a little. That could very well be why my stomach had settled and my mouth tasted awful.


	22. Chapter 22

-MULDER- 22

She was walking up the stairs when I exited my room, and stopped, taking in the breathtaking sight of her. It was still a shock to my brain that I was able to see such a beautiful vision daily, even though I had seen her before. Looking at her never got old, and each time, the love for her inside me grew, if that was possible. The other seeds that my blooming flower of affection had produced must have begun growing because I felt more in love with her with each second that ticked by.

She beamed when she saw me, making my heart smile. Just knowing that the sight of me made her feel the same way I did when I saw her lightened my mood even more so.

"Hey there," she said, grabbing my hand and stringing her fingers through mine. I squeezed her hand and looked into her eyes. The sight of her blue eyes, the immutable eyes, the only constant about her, triggered the memory of the day we first met, and her blue eyes had been the first thing I had noticed. I had thought they were so icy, and that chilled distaste had been the only emotion that she could show in them. But she proved my initial hypothesis false by the way she was looking at me now. The emotion in her eyes was happiness. They were so warm and welcoming, the iciness having completely melted away, by the warmth of my love.

"Hey," I said, bringing her hand to my mouth and kissing it softly, much more tenderly and with more reason that I had when I kissed Monica's hand. Oh, no. Monica.

"Scully, Monica, what ---," I began. Scully put her finger on my lips.

"Monica was never seriously attracted to you. She always flirts with endearing young men. It's sort of her weakness." She said, removing her finger from her lips.

"Are you calling me endearing? I don't know how to take that. I'm so used to insults, it's almost like compliments hurt too. So now I know Monica's weakness, but what's yours? What are you hiding behind those beautiful baby blues," I asked, genuinely curious, my charming tone hiding it. Her smile fell off her face, all traces of happiness gone, even from her eyes. They were cold once again; the ice had refrozen. Her hand extricated itself from the tangles of our fingers. "What? What did I say?" I asked, slightly worried by the extraction of her love from the situation. What had I done?

"Nothing, I'm fine." She said, forcing a smile. Though her mouth was forced in a pleasant position, the emotion in her eyes completely contradicted the fake display of contentment.

"Scully, don't insult my intelligence like that. Despite what society believes, beautiful people like me may still be able to string a sentence together and interpret facial expressions. You are lying. Please talk to me," I said, reverting to my sarcastic self; the one she and I were both most at ease with. The authentic smile that I had fallen in love with returned and the sigh of relief that I breathed was almost high pitched.

"Nothing, Mulder. Really. I'm fine," she repeated, the hurt in her voice gone, but the hurt her voice still residing. She did a good job at hiding every emotion except her hurt, but occasionally she could hide that too. I must have hurt her bad for there still to have been pain in her eyes.

"Scully," I said, taking her hand once more, the tenderness in my voice matching that in my actions. I gently caressed her hand, squeezing it, hoping to relay care and love from my hand into her. She smiled, squeezing my hand back, and with that I knew things were all right. I had apologized without words, she had accepted without words, and we had expressed our love for each other without words. Everything was without words. Both of us could be mute, and we could still have the amazing relationship that we did. "Scully," I said her name again, my tongue touching my teeth as I pronounced it, tasting it on my lips.

I moved her hand enclosed in mine to my shoulder and then placed my arms around her, holding her, gently and yet forcefully. She wrapped her arms around my neck, her fingers playing with the hairs on my nape, forcing the hairs everywhere on my body to stand erect. I took a deep breath, her scent overwhelming ad unbearable. It was beautiful and its familiarity was a comfort.

I moved closer to her, our bodies touching, pressing together. My hand found its niche, right in the small of her back, fitting in like a lock and a key. We stood, her face pressed into my chest, our bodies exchanging heat, our breaths filled with the other's scent. I could stand with her close to me forever, and I wanted to. I hoped this moment wouldn't end, she wouldn't pull away, she wouldn't leave.

I moved one of my hands, the one not in its rightful place, to her face, moving my body away from her. Her arms tensed and tightened their grip, unaware of the purpose for my body's retraction from our embrace. I turned her face towards me, rubbing my thumb up and down her soft, enflamed cheek, our eyes scorching the others. Our faces slowly moved closer together, almost like the attracting and repelling forces of a magnet. As we got closer, one of us moved away, and then we slowly moved back together. My lips hovered dangerously close to hers. Her breath was hot, overflowing into my mouth, mine into hers. Our breathing was staggered, labored because of the desire, the excitement we were overwrought with.

My lips were centimeters, if that, from hers and we slowly, almost as if we weren't moving at all, closed the gap. Our lips met, hardly touching and yet passion exploded into and from both of us. I moved my over hand from the lock and to her other cheek, my hands gently and fervently stroking and caressing her face. We kissed, our tongues in an endless game of tag. Her fingers massaged my neck and the goose bumps returned. Though my lungs were about to burst and my head was screaming for oxygen, my heart and my body had other plans. My heart ached for her, and my body never wanted to let her go.

Time stood still as we kissed, our hands caressing, our tongues dancing. It was indescribable, everything that I was feeling as my lips were joined with hers, and they only thing that was certain in my mind was that I never wanted to stop kissing her, holding her, loving her. To my agony and relief, we broke apart, my lungs almost exploding from my immense intake of air. Our breathing fell in sync, ours lips still close, our foreheads together, our hands in place. I was gasping, not only for air, but for her. My lips wanted hers, my hands wanted hers, my heart wanted hers. We stood, both of us panting, the sound of our hearts almost audible. We looked at each other, our eyes exchanging words, our hearts exchanging beats.

"Mulder," she broke the silence, the sound of my name on her lips arousing the seemingly incessant goose bumps on my skin. Her eyes were staring into more, telling me that she wanted more, wanted me. My eyes held the same message and I hoped she saw in them my love for her.

"Scully," I said, savoring her name, the way my mouth moved, the way my heart moved when I said it. Even though we had only said the other's name, it was as if we had spoken an entire conversation.

"You just can't keep away can you?" She asked teasingly as we moved apart, calming ourselves, soothing the yearning inside us.

"I could say the same," I said, trying to mute the sound of my heart beating, beating for her. She could her it, the way it was in sync with her breathing, in sync with her heart.

"My mother didn't even have to stop us this time. Am I that repulsive? You can't bear to touch me for too long?" She asked, laughing slightly. I grabbed her wrists and pulled her close, my heart racing.

"Don't even joke about that. You are beautiful, Scully, more beautiful than a sunset or a sunrise, more beautiful than the moon in the sky, than the stars sparkling in the sky. I can't bear to not be able to touch you. If I could, I would hold you forever. If I could, I would kiss you forever. By chance, I get to love you forever. By sheer chance, I get to hold you in my head forever, in my heart forever. What would happen if I didn't have that chance? What if I couldn't love you? Life would be meaningless Scully. Don't even say that. It hurts me. I always want to touch you, to kiss you, to love you. Don't say it," I said, the emotion dripping in my voice. She really didn't know how much I needed her, how much I loved her, how much it would hurt if I didn't have her.

"I meant it only as a joke, Mulder. I'm sorry. I didn't know you felt that way," she said, pulling her wrists from my hands.

"I do, Scully," I said, forcing every ounce of affection in my body into that statement. She has to know. I do. More than she'll ever know.


	23. Chapter 23

-SCULLY- 23

As much as it pained me to admit, my mother was more right than she would know, than I'd want her to know. My mother was not the petty type to rub in the fact that she knew better than I, but she might not be able to resist a slight teasing, 'I told you so'. There's only so much humility a person can spare.

When Mulder and I kissed, I lost all sense of right and wrong, all sense of anything. It was him and me in the moment, forever, just the way we both wanted. My feelings for him scared me, as I had admitted to him and myself not long ago. But they were truly terrifying to me now. Every time we talked, laughed, kissed, I was bowled over by the emotions inside me, all spawned by interaction with him. I uncovered self control inside myself that I didn't even know I had when I was spending time with him.

Again, with a lot on my mind, sleep hid the white flag that I had from my mother today. I walked down stairs, déjà vu in the air along with an air of fatigue as I sat with a pudding cup at the bar in the kitchen. There was only thing missing for this scenario to be the exact same as it had last time.

As if he heard me thinking that, Mulder walked down the stairs in the same confused manner he had before, scratching his head and blinking his eyes in the dark.

"Déjà vu," he said, smiling as he saw me and my friend the pudding cup. He glared at the nonfat devil before me.

"If you want things to be the same, you'll have to eat one bite," I said, spooning up a heaping spoonful and laughing when panic in his reply.

"I'm perfectly comfortable with change, Scully. Besides, I have new questions to ask you now," he said, grinning wickedly as he flipped on the light above the stove. We both blinked, temporarily blinded by the sudden light. Mulder must have recovered faster than I, because he was sitting across from me and his hand was open, offered to me, when I squinted through slits in my eyes. I smiled at him, now able to see him smiling back, and took his open hand. We squeezed, the slight pressure change like unspoken 'I love yous' shared between us.

"I think it is my turn, Mulder, but please, by all means, ask away," I said, raising my eyebrow at him, daring him to ask me something slightly naughty.

"Were you somewhat perturbed by my behavior last time we partook in this activity?" He asked, fluffing his question and playing it up. Some people might find that annoying; the way he never said exactly what he meant, the way he twisted his words faintly. It was true I often found his replies or questions ambiguous, but I loved it when he told me that he loved me that way.

The first night he had expressed his true feelings for me had been magical when he said so. The way he dragged it out, the way he expanded upon every small detail, making what I thought was simple intricate, what I thought was easy complex, what I thought was easily unexplained unexplainable. The way he made things different – sometimes better, sometimes worse – than they really were amazed me. He could take something ugly and make it beautiful. He could make something beautiful ugly. He could strip things down to the very core, showing you exactly what something was while showing you exactly what it was at the same time.

"Mulder, 'perturbed' would be little more than an insignificant, much less powerful adjective as to what I felt that night. You acted infuriatingly difficult that night and it was just too much for me. One minute we were calm, and we were learning things about each other and the next minute you exploded, not unlike a cannon, Mulder. What was that all about?" I asked, trying to get a little more information as to why he blew up at me that night.

"I just have this theory. You wouldn't want to hear about it though, trust me," he said, looking down, somewhat abashed.

"Try me," I said, willing him to look back up at me.

"My question that night was a test. If you answered one way, I would tell you, if you answered another, I wouldn't. You didn't answer the way where you learned what I am hiding." He said, sounding sad that I my answer had been a disappointment.

"If I'd known why you were asking I might have answered differently. The question came out of no where, Mulder. No where! I didn't see it coming and I didn't know how to react or how to respond, let alone take into account **how** you wanted me to respond. I was having difficulty stringing a sentence together; I didn't even take time to think how my answer would affect you," I said, hoping to weasel what he was hiding out of him. He looked adamant and sadly, it didn't appear as if any amount of weaseling was going to get him to tell me. "Well, it's my turn then. What exactly were you thinking when you pulled me away from that animal that night I was high?"

"Words cannot describe the immediate anger that burned inside me. I wanted to rip him apart for touching you. Every time his hand touched your body, it injured me, and those images will never be erased from my head, nor will the scars from my heart. There are not words powerful enough to express everything that I was feeling and wanting to do. The worst was that you didn't do anything. I know that you couldn't, but that doesn't and didn't eradicate the pain. It's still there, simply dulled, quieted." His words hurt me. It pained me to see him so upset and it hurt even more to know that I was the cause of his misery, of his agony.

"Mulder, I'm so ---," I began.

"Save the apologies. The times for explanations has long since passed. It's my turn. Did you mean what you said? That you were scared by the intensity of your feelings for me? Do you really love me as much as you said?" He asked, scared curiosity not even hidden in his voice.

"If you don't know the answer to that question, Mulder, I don't know why we're sitting here right now. You and I both know that you are the one with a way with words and I can never express my words to the extent where they mean even near the amount that yours do. But Mulder, I love you. Just as there is the sun in the sky, the birds in the trees, life in the air, I love you. Nothing has ever felt more natural, more right, than the way I feel telling you that I do. I do Mulder. I love you. I'm sorry if I haven't made that clear enough, because God knows how true it is," I said, taking a breath after my monologue. It was times like now that I wished I had Mulder's eloquence and ease with language. I could not romantically tell him of my feelings. All I had were three words, and the hope that they were enough.

"I don't know where you get the outrageous idea that I have more articulacy than you. Your words mean so much more than mine; raw emotion, simple and meaningful, whereas mine are shrouded by intelligent words, metaphoric language, and blurred meanings. I love when you tell me you love me. It's like seeing inside you, seeing the you that you never show. The you that's behind your eyes." I looked away from him and almost removed my hand from his. I hated when he brought up the things that were secreted in my eyes. It made me nervous that he could even see that I was concealing something. If he could see that, he might be able to see what I was hiding, and that was heart stopping.

"Why is it that you always find it necessary to bring up my eyes? Why do you always think that there is something I'm hiding?" I asked, hoping that my candor would prevent him from bringing it up again. I should have known that drawing attention to the fact that I noticed that he intentionally mentioned it as often as possible would only enable him.

"I bring it up, because your eyes are beautiful. There is more depth in them then there is to the bottom of the deepest ocean. There is more color to them than a million cloudless skies. There is more hidden beneath them than there are secrets in the world. Your eyes were the first thing I noticed about, and from day one, I have been enraptured by them. What they do when you're mad, when you're amused, when you're happy fascinate me. But I am especially obligated to gaze into them when I am holding you. They mirror every bit of love that I feel for you. And that's when you let down your guard and I am closest to seeing what you obscure."

"I want to tell you. But I don't know if I can. I don't know if I can come to terms with what happened. I love you Mulder. I love you so much. But voicing what happened out loud, voicing anything out loud, makes it real, makes it true. I don't want it to be true. I can't handle that it's true."

"Scully?" Mulder asked gently, concern sparkling blindingly in his eyes.

"I didn't mean for it to happen. I didn't ask for it, but no one does. Mulder, I haven't told anyone this, not Monica, not my sister, and not my mother. Two years ago, not long after my boyfriend and I broke up, I met this guy. He was mysterious and compelling and I thought that I was in love with him. We went out a couple of times and I liked him more and more. On our third date, we went to a bar for a short period of time and I had entirely too much to drink. He thought that in my drunken state, it would be easier for him to take advantage of me. And he was right." I paused, the memory of that night understandably fresh in my mind seeing as how it played over and over again in my nightmares. "He took me to a hotel and I remember nothing but the look of lust in his eyes as he laid me on the bed. I woke up and I was naked and he was gone. And I can't let it go. I can't believe it happened. I just can't," I said, and the tears overtook me and my body heaved with sobs as I cried, letting tears fall for the first time in two years, since the morning after it had happened.


	24. Chapter 24

-MULDER- 24

I wrapped my arms around her, shielding her from the pains of the world, but unable to guard her from the pain inside her own heart. Sobs wracked her tiny, but anything but fragile body. She seemed so small, so weak, so vulnerable. She never seemed that way. She was Scully, strong, independent, brave. But not now.

"Scully, I know mere words cannot repair the wounds inflicted upon you. I am again speechless because of you. I cannot apologize profusely enough for it to mean anything, make any difference, and certainly not make anything better. I wish there were words though, words of comfort that I could whisper in your ear, or scream from a mountain. But I know that no matter the volume I speak them in, no matter how eloquently I phrase them, they will change nothing, they will mend nothing." I pressed her head on my chest, wishing that words were enough, but knowing that they weren't.

"It hurts so much," she sobbed, her voice catching. "It hurts to know that I'm as weak as all the other girls at school who let guys take advantage of them. It hurts to know that I didn't do anything to stop him. It hurts to know that I wasn't in any state to. It hurts."

"I know, Scully, I know. And there is nothing I can say to extinguish that hurt, nothing I can do to even dull it. It will always be with you. You have to figure out how you will use it, how you will start to forgive it. You are not like other girls. Scully, you are exceedingly far beyond comparison to any of the girls your age. You have wisdom of a woman many times your age. You have the capability to love with more compassion and warmth than any girl your age. You have the ability to phrase things so that they hit you home, right where it hurts, or right where it heals. You are so different from them, Scully, all of them. You are so far above them that they can't even see you," I whispered, hoping that the sincerity could be heard in my voice and not only expressed through my words.

"I can't talk about this anymore," she said, shifting in my embrace, sounding restricted in my arms. "I hate feeling weak, I hate feeling defenseless like this. This is why I've never talked about this. It's not who I am to show people that I can be like this. I hate showing that I ---," I cut across her, unable to listen anymore.

"You hate showing that you are human? Is it awful to show dependency on someone? Is it really that painful to show that you trust someone enough to open up to them? Is it really that difficult to show that you feel pain too?" I asked, looking in her eyes.

"It just makes me like everyone else," she said, pressing her forehead to mine, showing affection but averting her eyes from mine.

"No, Scully. It makes you different. It makes you different because of the way you express the pain, the way you feel the pain, the way you react to the pain. If you let yourself feel it, let others know you feel it, you are different. It's easy to bottle things up like you do. It's exceptionally complicated to let others know what you're feeling." I said, moving her chin with my hand so she was forced to look into my eyes. Her eyes were puffy and slightly bloodshot from the tears of anguish she had shed. She looked disheveled and completely un-put-together, and yet she had never looked more beautiful. The emotion, everything that she was feeling was perfectly displayed on her stunning face. I didn't have to search, didn't have to come up empty because I couldn't find what she was feeling. It was all there, as easy to read as a picture book. "You look beautiful," I told her, voicing my thoughts.

She unconsciously ran a hand through her hair. "I must look like a nightmare. I'm a mess," she said, wiping underneath her eyes.

"You have never looked more…real," I said, unable to find a better word to describe what she was right now. 'Real' wasn't even a very accurate one.

"Real? Are you feeling all right Mulder? 'Real' is only four letters. Are you sure you don't want to try for a bigger one?" She asked teasingly.

"Real fits," I said, bringing my face to hers so that our noses were touching. Her eyes were warm and her smile was as genuine as ever. She moved her face away from mine and pressed her lips to my forehead.

"I love you," she whispered in my ear as she coiled her arms around my neck.

"I love you too," I whispered back as the key found its lock in my hand on the small of her back. I felt goose bumps on her as I turned my face and kissed her cheek.

"Mulder?"

"Yes, Scully?" I replied, loving the way she said my name, and relishing the way it felt to say hers.

"Promise me something," she said, sounding as if something was bothering her and she needed me to do whatever she asked almost desperately.

"Anything," I said, holding her tighter to my body. I would go to the end of the world and come back for her.

"Just promise me that this is how it will always be. Promise me that I'll always love you, and you'll always love me, and nothing can tear us apart. Promise me that it'll be just like this moment forever. Promise me that you'll never stop holding me." She said, and I could almost hear the tears in her eyes and I **could **hear the lump in her throat.

"I promise you, Dana Katherine Scully that I will never, not for an instance, not for a moment will I ever stop loving you. A lifetime of loving you would still leave me unsatisfied. I promise you that no matter what happens, I will never stop holding you, stop loving you. I will always love you, forever," I said, willing her with my words to believe them and lock them inside her heart where nothing could wash them away, where the erosion of the world's trials could not touch them. "Now promise me something."

"Anything," she said, holding me tighter to her body, just as I had to her when I said it.

"Promise me that you'll always believe that. Promise me that even though bad things might happen, and I guarantee they will, that you will always have those words to hold on to. Promise me that you won't want this moment to end. Promise me that you'll never want me to stop holding you." I said, a lump rising in my own throat. She could hear it, I know she could, just like she could hear my heart beat, always and forever beating in time with hers.

"I promise you, Fox William Mulder that I will never, not for an instance, not for a moment will I ever stop loving you. A lifetime of hearing that you love me would still leave me dissatisfied. I promise that I will never, ever, want you to stop holding me, stop loving me. I will love you forever and always," she said, replicating my words. Though they were very similar, her words seemed to mean so much more.

"I love you, Scully, please, please don't forget that." I said, fulfilling my promise and holding her as if my life depended on it.

"I love you too, Mulder, and don't worry, I can't forget it. It's the only thing I have worth remembering," she said, reciprocating the pressure of the grip of our embrace. We were silent, nothing but that sound of our hearts beating as one breaking through the air.

We stood, holding each other, loving each other, and I knew. She was the one. The one I was destined to be with, to spend eternity with. She was my significant other. I scowled at the expression. She was so much more than significant. She was everything. She was my perfect other, the one who completed me, the one who made me better than I was. She fulfilled all the 'perfect other' requirements. I smiled at my thought process. 'Requirements'.

She made me happy. There was no other way to say it, no way to make it more than it was because it was everything it could be. She made me happy.

She made me better than myself. She brought out the best in me and made me use everything that I had to show her that I loved her.

She was my everything. She held my heart in the palm of her hand and while once upon a time this might have terrified me, that my heart was in another's hand other than my own, it felt right. It felt more like it belonged with her than it did with me.

I loved her. The most important and most complicated. I loved her. It seemed so simple to say it. But I think that the phrase was simply created because there was no way to describe what was being felt. It was more exhilarating than sky diving. It was more terrifying than the nightmare where you're walking down the street naked. It was more wonderful than all the wonderful things of the world. There was no easy way to explain everything that you feel. So 'I love you' was born. A simple, but meaningful way to describe the palpations of our own feelings, to communicate the breath-taking emotions that surged through our veins. I love you. I love her.

I would always love her, just like I promised. I would love her even after the sun stopped shining and the birds stopped singing. I would love her forever.


	25. Chapter 25

-SCULLY- 25

I laid in my bed, staring at the ceiling, but not really seeing it. All I could see was the look on Mulder's face when he promised me, when I promised him. He was so sincere, so desperate for me to believe him. It was so cute the way he looked like a begging puppy, with his big eyes and frown, 'begging' for me to believe him. And I did. After all, I was a sucker for puppies.

I wanted him to still be holding him. I wanted his large, protecting arms around me, keeping me warm, keeping me safe. I felt comfortable in his arms, like they were engineered for the sole purpose for me to fit in them. It was like the way his hand fit on the small of my back. We just fit together. The hope that we always would was the last thought in my mind as I drifted into a sleep in which Mulder wandered my dreams.

I woke up the next morning, rejuvenated and filled to the brim with Mulder's love. I laid in bed and woke up leisurely, wondering but not really caring why my mother hadn't woken me. I replayed last night in my head. We had talked; we had hugged each other, simply holding one another. I would be satisfied if I could just stay in his arms forever. I had broken down and we had promised undying love to the other. He had carried me up the stairs after I had almost fallen asleep standing up. He had laid me in my bed, whispered "I love you", kissed my forehead, turned and left my room. Always the gentlemen.

I stretched and slowly crawled out of my bed, walking downstairs to the kitchen. I blinked when I saw my mother sitting at the bar and inwardly groaned. Please not another lecture. I'm too happy.

"Dana, I'm glad you're up," she said, sipping her tea from a small mug.

"Why is that? You didn't give me that daily ten thirty wake up call." I said, pouring myself some water and then sitting across from her.

"I figured I'd let you sleep in considering you and Fox had somewhat of a late night last night," she said, not looking at me. Oh no. She was deliberately not looking into my eyes. That was never a good sign. My mother always looked directly into your eyes when she spoke to you. When she didn't, it was disappointment or anger. I was sensing a little of both. "No excuses? You're not going to try to explain why you weren't in your bed at one AM? You're not going to try to ease my mind?" She asked hotly, and had we been maintaining eye contact, I'm sure I would have seen some hostility glistening in her brown eyes. Maybe it was a lot of both anger and disappointment.

"We were just talking, Mom," I said, trying and failing to soothe her growing anger.

"I heard you talking! I heard you talking about, about," my mother spluttered, searching for the right words. I knew what she was trying to say. I really wasn't ready to discuss with her my sexual life, even if it didn't incriminate me.

"Mom, please don't. I'm sorry I never told you. It's just not who I am," I said, wanting to get this over with as soon as humanly possible.

"It's not who you are, Dana? Then who are you? My daughter would have told me about this. Who are you? I know you've always been the strong one; always relying on yourself, not entirely trusting people, always keeping your guard up. I know you're not the kind of person who likes to discuss when she's hurt or in pain. But Dana, you're not Superwoman. If you can't rely on me, who can you rely on?"

My mother finally looked at me, and although I was wishing she would, as soon as her eyes met mine, I wished she hadn't. She had been crying. Her eyes were bloodshot and so puffy they were almost slits. She looked awful. I don't know if there's anything scarier to a child than the sight of their parents crying. Parents are supposed to make things better, and if you see them crying, it's like the world is ending. If they're crying, who's going to make them feel better?

'I just couldn't tell you. I'm so sorry," I began.

"What are you sorry about, Dana? Sorry that I found out like this or sorry that I found at all," She asked angrily, tears falling from her eyes. "This is a mother's worst nightmare. Not just what happened to you, but that you didn't feel like you could tell me."

"Nothing I can say will make this better. I think that the only reason you're really upset is because I told Mulder and not you. You resent him." I said accusingly, knowing that no matter how much my mother loved Mulder, she did resent him slightly.

"I do not! Don't try to pin this on Fox! I am upset with you right now," my mother said, denial in her eyes and in her voice. She was not very good at hiding her emotions and it was almost a shock to see such a blatant display when Mulder and I kept ours hidden away.

"I am not trying to shift the blame anywhere! I know you're mad at me, but I can't help it if I didn't want to tell you. You wouldn't understand," I said looking down as I spoke the words that break a mother's heart. I couldn't bear to see the pain on her face. It would be exactly the amount she was feeling because she hid nothing, and I wasn't sure I could handle everything. I had only said it so that she would leave me alone. I didn't want to get into this with my mother any more than I had wanted to get into this with Mulder.

"Then help me understand. Don't leave me in the dark, Dana," she said, trying to hide the pain that was etched in every wrinkle on her mother's kind face. The crow's feet at the corners of her eyes, the wrinkles at the corners of her mouth, and the top of her forehead held onto the pain that she felt. I hated myself for saying that to her.

"Maybe that's where you belong, Mom," I said, turning and running up the stairs before I could see the weight of the creases' pain swell.


	26. Chapter 26

-MULDER- 26

She came running up the steps, the second time in as many days. But this time, she was not happy, not even when she saw me waiting for her. She ran right into my arms, her body heaving as she bottled up the tears that were welling in her eyes. The air was not content as it had been yesterday; it was overcast and gray, like the storm clouds hovering in the rain-scented air outside.

"Scully," I said, needing only to say her name for her to receive the message that I wanted to know what was wrong.

"Don't," she breathed, her voice thick with tears she wouldn't cry. "Just don't." So I didn't. I held her tightly to my chest and didn't. Didn't ask, didn't say, didn't breathe. I didn't. Footsteps on the stairs forced my head to swivel on my neck to see who was climbing them. The footsteps were slow, as if it was a strain on the person ascending just to walk up them.

Maggie's head appeared and she looked so old, so tired, so frail. The lines on her face were more pronounced and the frown on her face was foreign. Her face looked so aged, as if she were twice her biological age. It didn't take a connect-the-dot picture to amalgamate the facts. Maggie was crying because of Scully. Scully wasn't crying because of Maggie.

Maggie just looked at me, embracing her youngest daughter. I could see it in her eyes, the resentment, the longing that our roles were reversed. She was wishing that she was comforting her daughter and I was staring in agony at the one I loved. Maggie was naïve. Didn't she know that wishing won't get you anywhere, and it won't change things at all?

Scully had felt my arms tense around her when I saw her mother on the steps, and had pulled slightly away from my chest to see what had caused my anxiety. She saw her mother's face and instantly buried herself away again. The hurt that was directed at Maggie was displayed carelessly on her face, and her mouth opened in a gasp of anguish.

"Scully," I whispered, relaying my reproach for her iciness towards her mother. She looked up at me, determination mingled with the tears in her eyes. I had connected the dots, but I was missing a crucial piece of the puzzle.

"Dana," Maggie said, the pain on her face shining through in her voice so Scully could hear it even if she couldn't see it. Scully winced and her body tensed as mine had. Just the sound of her name, two syllables, and you could hear Maggie's heart breaking. "Dana," Maggie said again, hoping to draw a reaction, any kind of reaction from her daughter.

"What," Scully said, her utterance slightly muffled by my chest. She pulled away from me, and although I didn't want her to, I let her go. Whatever was taking place here, I didn't want to get involved. "What do you want?"

"Fox, could you give my daughter and me a moment?" Maggie asked, obviously wanting to get rid of me. Scully's face darkened, and if possible her mood did too.

"Why does he have to leave? Is it because you're afraid that I might actually be right and this doesn't involve you?" Scully spat, glaring angrily at her mother. Her ferocity was startling and I was very glad I wasn't on the receiving end of her rage.

"Dana, please, listen to me," Maggie began, futilely attempting to get her fuming daughter to cool off and listen. Scully wouldn't stand down.

"I think there's been enough listening! You listen even when I don't ask you to, just like you didn't last night," Scully said, her face red from the anger and pain she was feeling. As soon as she finished speaking, I knew exactly what she was talking about. It was like searching for the missing piece to a one thousand piece puzzle and then finding it underneath the couch, but after you had dismantled the puzzle. It was almost as if you wished you hadn't found it. That was how I felt. I wanted to shove the puzzle piece right back under the couch, never to stumble upon it – intentionally or unintentionally – again.

My heart dropped to my feet, burdened by the accumulation of both Maggie and Scully's pain. Scully's anger at her mother's complete disregard for personal boundaries churning with guilt for not having divulged to her mother what had happened earlier and Maggie's hurt at having been kept in the dark and her ache for what her daughter had gone through acted as an instant weight, pulling my helpless heart down, plummeting into the bowels of my own emptiness.

My heart split right down the middle, one half reaching out to Maggie, the other placing itself next to Scully's. I could not even begin to imagine what they were experiencing, and I sensed that this was one of their many problems. They could not and would not put themselves in each other's shoes, believing that their burden outweighed the other's.

"Maggie," I began, and Scully's head swiveled awkwardly and jerkily to look at me. There was a word in her eyes, a word that I wished could simply be crossed out or erased. Traitor. I continued, despite Scully's burning, scorching glare. "Maggie, think about where she is coming from. It's not your fault that she didn't tell you. She doesn't blame you for what happened; therefore you shouldn't blame yourself as I can see that you're doing. It's not her fault she didn't tell you either. You were listening last night; you must have heard that she hadn't told anyone. Not Monica or Melissa. Or you."

"But why didn't she? I've always been here, waiting for her with open arms, waiting for my baby to tell me anything, to give me anything, to show me anything to indicate that she even felt something. Why didn't she tell me?" Maggie asked, her voice sparkling with pain just like the tears on her aged face.

"Put yourself in her shoes, Maggie. Imagine that you keep everything bottled up so tightly up inside that your insides began to turn themselves inside out. Imagine that your emotions were foreign and you had them isolated, away from everything real. Imagine that you are your daughter. Then imagine that you experienced what she did. Your entire life you have kept secrets about your feelings. Your entire life you have never once expressed how you felt. How can you go from nothing to everything in an instant? You can't. Neither could Scully," I finished, pretending not to notice Scully's softened gaze on me. I had shot this one right in the center, spot on.

Maggie's face only affirmed my feelings. She put herself in her daughter's shoes and walked a mile, feeling what Scully felt, thinking how Scully thought. At the mile marker, she understood Scully' reaction as completely as was possible. Now it was Scully's turn.

"Scully," I began, taking the same breath I did with Maggie, in a final attempt to collect my fleeting reason. "You must understand why your mother is upset. This is any and every mother's nightmare, and unintentionally, you worsened an already excruciatingly painful situation. You kept it from her, hid the pain and tried to deal with it on your own. Maggie wants you to know that she wants to hurt with you; she wants to share the burden. Imagine that you express everything, that everything you feel, people know. Imagine that every inkling of anything is clearly readable on your face. Imagine that your daughter is your opposite and you find out that she kept from you what you did from your mother. Feel the pain she felt when she was unaware, think the thoughts she thought when she was uninformed. Your worst nightmare has happened to the person you most care about, and she didn't even bother to tell you. How can you go from everything to nothing in an instant? You can't. Neither could Maggie," I said, finishing the same way, still feeling Scully's gaze.

"Fox," Maggie said, and I knew what was coming before she even said it.

"Please excuse me," I said, interrupting her. "But this is clearly a mother-daughter moment, and seeing as how I am neither, it is inappropriate that I am present." I walked into my room and shut the door, but not before seeing Scully's face, her eyes rimmed with tears, her face filled with love. I heard mumbled apologies and Scully bursting into tears through the barriers of the door. My cheeks flushed as I realized that I was not meant to have heard. I sat on the bed, trying to focus on anything but the two weeping women outside my bedroom door, both of whom I cared deeply for, one of whom had my heart.


	27. Chapter 27

-SCULLY- 27-

I wept openly in my mother's arms, letting the thousands of tears I had held back in her presence come tumbling down. I knew that the door between Mulder and my mother and I was not very thick and would therefore not be very effect as a sound barrier, but I didn't stop the tears.

I sobbed for myself, for every tear I held back in the past. I cried for Mulder, who had bridged the growing gap between my mother and I, and who had made me a whole person again. But mostly, I wept for my mother, who in all her years in the motherly position had never once seen me open up and become a human being.

I cried for the pain I knew she was feeling and for the pain I had caused her by concealing everything emotionally relevant, by negating everything emotionally significant. The tears were for her, all of them.

"Mom," I said, the word coming across as a gasp. "I'm sorry." My mother didn't answer. She buried her face in my neck, her face wet with her tears and with mine. She held me tightly, no doubt relishing my brief and momentary display of humanity.

I think her tears were for herself. She was crying for the same reason I was. But that makes her sound selfish. She may very well have been crying for me, because of what I had gone through, because of how I lived. But that made me resent her. I didn't want her pity. But it very well may not have been pity. It was all subjective, down to the tearstains on our clothes, on our faces.

"I know," she whispered moments later, squeezing me as if her words weren't enough, as if her tears weren't enough. She hugged me and I hugged her, willing her to know that even if I didn't tell her everything, I loved her. She was my mother, and I loved her.

I knocked on his door after my mother went to bed at ten. He opened, a smile on his face as he knew who was knocking. His smile met mine and he moved back to let me into the room. I fell onto his bed, directly in the middle, making it impossible for him to sit or lay down without touching me first. I closed my eyes, wanting his hands to be a surprise, wanting the goose bumps to be a shock.

His strong, warm hands gently took my arms, pulling my upper body off the bed. He settled himself on the bed, his body next to me, closer to the head of the bed so that my head could rest comfortably on his muscular chest. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me just like he promised. I prayed he'd never stop, just like I promised.

"Mulder?" I whispered, afraid to talk any louder because the quiet felt natural, intentional.

"Hmm?" He replied, also in a low tone, knowing what I knew about the stillness.

"Thanks," I said simply, not saying anymore because I didn't need to. He didn't reply, the silence overwhelming me slightly. It felt like I was choking on the words he wasn't saying, just as my mother had been on the tears I wasn't crying.

"Scully," he said, his voice in a tone unlike any I had heard from him. I tensed anxiously, unsure of what was coming. I had none of the helpers; I couldn't see his face, I couldn't read his eyes, I couldn't hear his heart. And his tone was so…serious. Even when he had told me he loved me his tone had not been like this.

"Yeah," I replied, hoping that the nerves coursing through my body like shock waves weren't apparent. He waited a while, and I could almost hear his brain working, trying to form the thoughts in his head into coherent sentences, into his lyrical, flowing speech that embraced me like his arms and swallowed me like his love.

"I'm scared," he said, his voice soft, his words straightforward. As soon as he said it, fear that I had not felt since he had first held me in his arms resurfaced and gripped me with it's icy hands, sinking it's trenchant claws into my swelling heart. I swallowed the lump that rose in my throat and tried to push the thought in my head from my mind. Whatever scared him would most definitely scare me. I braced myself for his next words, trying to form a reply in my head. I opened my mouth to respond, to ask him the question we were both thinking as the silence grew. But he spoke. "I'm going to lose you." I could hear a lump in his throat and the one I had swallowed rose up again in mine.

"Mulder," I began, the lump slightly impeding the words of comfort I had in my head.

"Let me finish. I'm going to lose you. Not to another man, not to another person, but to the world, to yourself. I've been thinking about this since you and your mother made up this afternoon. After a while with me, you'll get worn out, and I'll be the toy that gets tossed under the bed, left to collect the dust that will inevitably accumulate. The wonders of the world will be too much, and I will be too little. Though I'll plead and beg and use every beautiful word in my vocabulary, I will be as powerless over you as I am over my own heart. You will not tell me you are leaving. I will just wake up one day and you will be gone, and my heart will trail after you, breaking as the distance between us grows with every step you take. I will lose you. As surely as I know my own name, as surely as I know I love you, I know this."

He let the words sit, and I let them sink in. I let them swirl around my heart, emptying it of his love. I lay there, stunned into silence, listening to his heart beating. I pressed my hand to my chest, feeling my own heart beat slowly, only going on because of him.

"Mulder," I said, his name almost inaudible. Two syllables had never held such pain before, such anything before. "How can you say that? How can you think that one day I will just get sick of you, that I'll be able to forget you as easily as some stupid toy? Have these weeks meant nothing to you? Has every 'I love you' that was uttered between us been a lie? Has every hug been instigated only by our presences and for lack of someone better? Has every kiss meant nothing? I made you a promise last night, Mulder. I will love you forever. I intend to keep every promise I have made or will ever make to you, in a pathetic attempt to prove my worth to you. I will love you forever, because a promise short-lived is a promise never made, and I never want anything to be short-lived between us," I said, tears falling onto his shirt, staining more fabric.

"Something is going to happen. I can feel it, something bad. I know it's coming, and it's going to affect us. I want you to know how much I love you before it does. How much I will always love you. I'm trying to tell myself that I don't, lying every second of every day to make letting go of you easier. I love you," he said, telling me for likely the one hundredth time that he did.

"And I love you, as I have said a thousand times past counting. Mulder, nothing could make me stop," I said, hoping my words were convincing enough, and knowing that if they weren't, there was always my tears. I knew what he was feeling. How terrifying it was to give someone the power to break you so easily, giving away your heart, entrusting it to another human being. I hoped that he knew that, that I could I relate to every word that was falling out of his mouth.

He wrapped his arms more tightly around me, squeezing the life out of me, and squeezing the love into me. He did believe me. And he didn't believe what he was saying. He was doing exactly what he said. He was trying to make letting go easier. He thought that voicing things would help. But it didn't. It just made his fears real, like voicing everything did.

"I know. I know. I'm sorry. If I know nothing else, I know that," he said, recovering from his fear's temporary takeover. I believed him, just as he did me. We laid in each other's arms, our hearts enflamed with the other's love, until we fell asleep, never wanting to let go.


	28. Chapter 28

-MULDER-28

I woke with her hair and a smile on my face. Her arm was thrown across my chest, hooking around my neck, her fingers tickling my nape. Her breathing was quiet, and I almost couldn't hear it over our hearts beating. She was so beautiful. Her skin was so light, so creamy smooth, and soft, almost like stroking velvet. Her hair was everywhere, in her mouth, in my face. It was beautiful, the color of her rage, but then the color of her love. Her hands were perfect, her fingers just the right length, her palm just the right size for mine. By themselves, her hands were the works of the angels, but when intertwined with mine, latched together eternally because of the perfection of the fit, it was inexplicable. The small of her back was one of my favorite of her features. It was a physical sign that we were meant for each other, my hand and her back confirming every word.

She sighed, and her hand moved to her face, brushing hair away. She opened her eyes slowly, taking in the scene set before her. She smiled at me and stretched, her arm brushing my face. I grabbed it before she could return it to my neck and kissed it softly. She looked at me, her eyes so filled with the love that was in her heart.

She sat up, leaning over me, both of her hands on my face, her thumbs stroking my nightly stubble. She kissed me, softly, barely pressing her lips to mine. As I felt her start to leave, I grabbed the back of her neck, holding her in place. She relaxed, and her lips spread in a smile. Once I was assured through her lips – but not from words – that she wasn't leaving, I moved my hand from her neck to her back, locking it in place. She kissed me deeply, our lips exchanging more than words could convey.

She pulled away slowly, our lips sticking together as she did. "Good morning," she whispered, her voice as soft as her lips. She smiled at me, a soft, small smile, still meaning more than any other smile in the world.

"Good morning," I said, smiling right back at the angelic being before me. I reached out my hand and ran it through her hair. She closed her eyes, leaning into my hand, reaching up her hand and pressing it to mine so that it cradled her beautiful face.

"Can we try that again," she whispered, coming in close to my face again.

"Please," I breathed, impatiently closing the distance between our lips and pressing against hers. We moved together, reciprocating the pressure, reciprocating the love. I moved to my knees, gripping her face in my hand, stroking over and over, and still feeling like I had not touched her enough. She moved her hands around my neck, latching her fingers together. I moved my hands to her small hips, exploring somewhere other than her back.

She opened her eyes, wondering why lock hadn't found key. She looked right into my open eyes and in the instant that her eyes found mine, I questioned every movie where the characters kissed eyes closed, every personal experience where I had kissed eyes closed. Looking in her eyes made me never want to close my eyes again, if it meant I would miss even a second of this. There was not even the slightest trace of ice, not even a slushy puddle. It was like staring into a fire, fueled and lit because of my love, because of our love. I was entranced.

I kissed more fiercely, forcing myself not to blink, not to miss anything. She was surprised by the pressure increase, and she fell backwards onto the bed. Due to the domino effect, I fell atop her, our lips never breaking apart. She was laughing with her eyes, her lips spreading into a smile again, inadvertently causing mine to do the same.

She braced herself with her hands, pressing and rubbing them across the landscape of my chest. I gripped her shoulders, rubbing my thumbs on her neck and running my hands down her arms. She sighed into the kiss, breathing slightly into my mouth. She moved her body, pressing her hip against my knee, trying to get underneath it.

She wanted me to straddle her, a knee on each side of her, a better angle for both of us, and yet a worse one. If I moved my knee, I wasn't sure if I could stop myself after that. I pulled away from her, suddenly, jerkily; thoughts of what could happen hindering my actions. She sat up slightly, propping herself up on her elbows, her chest thrust outward, tempting me involuntarily.

"What's wrong?" She asked, concerned, unaware that I was somewhat distracted by her bust, enhanced by her position. When I didn't answer, and my eyes weren't locked into hers, she looked down, and fixed the problem, sitting up entirely. "Good thing one of us had the sense to stop. You've almost completely lost control of yourself."

"What do you mean?" I asked, focusing on her face, knowing that this view was enough to keep me happy.

"Once upon a time, a wise friend of mine spoke a few words of wisdom to a boy I was dancing with, touching slightly upon the subject of breast gazing. You are the friend that spoke the words. And you're also the hypocrite who was staring at my chest not a minute ago," she said, spelling it out slowly, an amused expression on her face.

"I see what you mean. Thank you for the picture book illustration," I said, mirroring her amusement.

"You seemed like you needed it. Having said that, it's not surprising; my kissing is rather mind-blowing," she said, fluffing her hair and displaying the modesty that was hidden somewhere in her attractive body.

"Your modesty amazes me," I said, throwing a pillow at her head.

"As does my beauty no doubt," she said, returning the pillow with more accuracy than I had. She laughed softly as the pillow caught me square in the face, just as I had opened my mouth to reply.

"You want a war, Dana Scully, you'll get one," I said, grabbing two of the pillow's corners and swinging it wildly at her.

"Didn't you ever hear that you shouldn't hit a girl?" She giggled, taking another pillow and gripping it the same way I was. She wound up and swung, but not before I had moved out of the way. She moved as if in slow motion, the look on her face going from amused nonchalance to sudden panic as she fell off the edge of the bed, the momentum of her swing ultimately her demise. I burst out laughing, throwing my head back, before I realized that I was on the edge of the bed as well and the sudden shift of my weight threw off my balance, and gravity pulled me to the floor. It was Scully's turn to laugh as I hit the floor next to her, the wind flying from my lungs, the laugh dying on my lips. I regained my breath, smiling at the sound of her laugh, savoring it.

She looked over at me, her eyes shining with laughter. I reached out to stroke her face, and she moved closer to me, placing a soft kiss on my lips. I ran my fingers through her hair, and I leaned in to kiss her again.

"Mulder," she said when our lips were centimeters apart, forcing me to stop.

"What is it?" I asked, moving back to giving her room to breathe.

"I love you," she said, grabbing my chin between her thumb and her forefinger.

"I love you too," I said, rushing in to prove it with a kiss. She moved her forefinger to her lips, stopping me.

"Wait a minute, I'm not done," she said, smiling at my enthusiasm. "What you said last night, it scared me, Mulder. I'm not going anywhere. I swear to you. I love you." I hadn't meant to scare her last night. I could see the shadow of fear in her eyes, like the fear was fleeting, moving elsewhere.

"Scully, last night, I was just thinking out loud. I didn't mean to scare you. I love you too. So much." I looked into her eyes, searching for fear, but not finding any. I breathed a sigh of relief, and before I could draw another breath to refill my lungs, her lips were pressed to mine, her hand on my face.

I pulled back, still looking into her eyes. I stole a glance at the clock, calculating the time we had left until Maggie's wake up call. I did a double take, blinking, hoping that the clock was wrong. My panic must have been etched on my face, because Scully looked in the direction of the clock, inhaling sharply as she saw it. It was ten forty five, meaning that either Maggie was letting us sleep late, or that she had already come in; while we were asleep; in each other's arms; on Scully's bed.

"Mulder," she began, but I pressed a finger to my lips, indicating that she should be quiet.

"The odds that your mother has come and gone are very high and very likely; she probably saw us. So here's what we're going to do," I whispered, trying to quell the dread in my eyes. "You're going to go downstairs and check where your mother is. If the coast is clear, then come back upstairs. If it's not safe, stay downstairs. All right?" She nodded, standing and exiting the room.

'Please let Maggie not have seen us. Please let me be able to stay here with Scully. Please,' I whispered quietly, praying that I hadn't ruined the best thing that had ever happened to me.


	29. Chapter 29

-SCULLY- 29

I walked down the stairs quietly, my nerves on edge, my head on a swivel, my eyes on watch for my mother. I had seen the fear in Mulder's eyes, heard it in his voice, and now I wished he'd hidden it faster and better, and I hadn't been looking. Now I was scared too. I didn't know exactly how badly this could hurt us, but I knew that this was not going to end well, for anyone.

"Mom?" I asked, knowing that it came out in a whisper, quieted by my anxiety and the thumping of my rapidly beating heart. I prayed to God that my mother hadn't seen us and that she hadn't had a heart attack if she had. I was slightly worried that my poor mother – who was still in denial about the fact that I was almost eighteen – wouldn't be able to handle finding me in a bed with Mulder. Granted, we weren't doing anything other than sleeping, I highly doubted she would see it that way. "Mom?" I called, much louder this time, somehow finding my voice in the midst of my distress.

"Dana." My name was said, but it was not by my mother, or my father, or Charlie. It was the deep and unnecessarily stern voice of my older brother Bill.

"Bill!" I cried, running and jumping into his arms, not fully understanding the situation. When I began sliding down his body because he had not caught me like he was supposed to, I knew something was wrong, very wrong. Oh. My. God. Bill had seen us. Bill had come home from college for a weekend and had found me with a stranger in my bed. Bill overreacted to everything, even something small. But this, this he was going to stone me for, and he was going to rip Mulder to shreds. "Bill, calm down. Let me –."

"Calm down? Calm down, Dana?! Let you what? Explain? Explain why I come home to find my little sister in the arms of some boy I've never met?" Bill almost screamed at me, his face the color of my hair.

"I've met him! And I know him! And honestly, and frankly, this entire situation isn't really any of your concern," I said, flushing slightly with anger myself.

"Dana, don't be so naïve. You think you know him? You think it's not any of my concern? It's probably visible in his eyes, the lust, the want." Bill's eyes glistened, flashing and shining with pent-up rage.

"You mean the lust that was in your eyes at his age? You're a hypocrite! You talk about Mulder like he's some single-minded organism living for only one thing! He's different. You were the single-minded one. I could see it in **your **eyes, not in his," I said, spitting out the words like darts, hoping to hit him square in the forehead.

"Not in his? Not in his?! You've known him for what, a few months, and he's already in your bed? What does that mean? How should I interpret that, or better yet, how do you interpret that? Is it friendly behavior? Please enlighten me, Dana," he said, spitting them right back.

"Enlighten you? You're not worth my time or effort. You wouldn't understand. You're too single-minded," I said vehemently, venting my anger into my voice.

"I think I'd understand, Dana. I was him once. You tell the girl that you love her, and then, when she's done swooning and you're wooing has finally worked…" He broke off, and my face twisted in disgust. Bill was just like all the others, and worse, he was making Mulder just like them.

"Don't you dare. Don't you dare reduce him to what you were, and most likely still are. Just don't, Bill."

"You fell for it, didn't you? You fell for every single one of the lies, every single one of the stupid lines. You fell for him," he said, accusing me, making me feel guilty, making me feel…like I had done something wrong. When I didn't answer, he continued. "Tell me, Dana, was it before or after you slept with him?"

"Bill! That's enough!" My mother walked into the room, her face as red as mine. I stood, feeling small, very small, very insignificant. Everything that had happened, every day that had passed, I went over it in my head, searching for familiarity, for insincerity. I was second guessing everything he said, Bill having shaken my faith in him, faith that I couldn't quite grip again. Bill opened his mouth to argue, but my mother just glared at him, a look he got often. "I cannot believe you would say such things to your sister. You don't even know him. And apparently, you don't know her. I seem to be reminding you yet again that you are not the parent, and this time, I'm questioning whether you ever should be."

Bill looked at my mother, her words shocking both of us, slicing through the tension. My mother had never said anything like that, to anyone, let alone her eldest son. Bill opened his mouth again, but closed it again too, unable to find words. We all looked to the stairs to see Mulder descending, his face ashen, his eyes pained. He had heard every word, every false accusation, every condemnation made by my brother, and my feeble attempts at counters, at defense. He had heard my confidence dwindle, my faith shake, my fingers slip.

The look on his face broke my heart, slowly, each and every sign of pain displayed like a chisel striking my heart, again and again, unsuccessful each time. The guilt returned, and now I knew why it was settled in the pit of my stomach. I was guilty for second guessing, for doubting, when I knew that he would never lie to me. It hurt worse than his pain breaking my heart. It twisted and turned in my stomach, clenching and unclenching, paining me.

"Bill, you need to leave. Now," my mother said, firmly stating what we were all thinking.

"Where –," he began, but I cut across him, reacting to the knot of guilt in my stomach.

"We don't care where you go, just get the hell out of our lives!" I practically screamed at him, angrier at myself, but taking it out on him because it was easier, less painful. He looked at me briefly, slightly taken aback, before turning towards the door and leaving.

"Dana, Fox, why don't you two sit down? This could take a while," my mother said, foreshadowing what was to be a long and painful conversation. "I didn't see you two this morning, but I trust you both enough to know that nothing earth-shattering took place last night," she said, not entirely believing what she was saying. She looked to both of us for confirmation. We averted our eyes, neither confirming nor denying. She went on, much less sure of herself and her assumptions. "Bill found you two in each other's arms this morning. Would one of you two please explain to me what is going on here? Not just this instance, but for the past couple of months. I'm not blind, you know," she said when we looked at each other.

"Of course you're not, Maggie. Well, where should I begin? From the first moment I saw Scu – I mean Dana – I knew that I our destinies would forever be intertwined. As I got to know her and spent more time with her, I can honestly say, that I fell in love with your daughter. Everything about her is extraordinary; the sound of her laughter, the color and depth of her eyes, the way she looks when she sleeps," he said, trailing off, lost in thoughts, in memories.

"I feel the same way. Mulder and I, we're the two out of the thousands, out of the millions, that find their perfect other, and know it. I know it. I love him," I said, looking at him as I said it, speaking more to him than my mother. My mother didn't speak, looking deep in thought, as Mulder's eyes sought and found mine. 'I love you' his eyes said, and I smiled, saying the same. "I'm sorry', I said with mine, blinking slowly, showing my remorse the best I could without words, with only eyes. 'You don't have to be', his said, 'I already forgive you'.

"Fox, I expect you to continue to show my daughter the respect that you do. Dana, I expect you to do the same," she said quietly, looking at her folded hands in her lap. We both stood hesitantly, ready to remove ourselves from my mother's presence. We moved toward the steps, and Mulder reached out and grabbed my hand, entwining our fingers, just like our hearts. "Dana," my mother called, gesturing for me to come back. "You picked a good one," she whispered, making sure Mulder couldn't hear when I had reached her side.

I smiled, looking at him, his face anxious, waiting for me at the foot of the stairs. "Tell me about it."


	30. Chapter 30

-MULDER- 30

For the second morning in a row, I woke up with her in my arms, her hair in my face, overwhelming happiness in my heart. She was awake though, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. She looked deep in contemplation, deep in thought, her body here, but her mind elsewhere.

"Good morning," I whispered, placing a kiss softly on her forehead at the edge of her hairline. She looked up at me and smiled, as she often did, as I often did. "Penny for your thoughts," I offered, wondering what she was thinking so intently.

"I was just thinking," she said, her eyes glazing over again, her mind wandering, leaving me hanging in curiosity.

"Thanks, I couldn't tell. Now how about you enlighten me as to what you were thinking. Your face was almost pained, like you were thinking so hard it hurt, or whatever you were thinking hurt," I said, breaking off as I realized what I had just said. She looked back at me, and then looked away as she realized what I realized.

"I was just thinking. These past months have been some of the best of my life. But, where do we go from here?" She asked, her face contorting again. I waited for more, and when none came, I scrambled for a satisfying answer to appease her twisted face, to soothe my twisting stomach.

"Forward. Where else can we go?" I asked, hoping that my words were the right ones. I couldn't shake the feeling that they weren't.

"That's what I mean. Where else can we go? We can't stay here forever. This moment will end, whether we want it to or not. When it's over, what then? Where will we be?" She sat up, running her hand through her hair, crossing her legs in pretzel style.

"When it's over, we'll start another. We'll live, moment to moment, day to day, kiss to kiss. I'll live for you, you'll live for me," I said, sitting up and sitting behind her, pulling her to rest on my chest.

"What if something happens to you?" She whispered, and I finally knew what she meant, what she was thinking, what she was worrying about. "What if you get hurt? What if –," she broke off, unable to speak the words I knew she was thinking.

"Scully, I'll always be here to protect you," I said, beginning to comfort her.

"But who's going to protect you?" She interrupted me, pulling out of my arms, turning to face me, obviously not wanting to be comforted. "Who's going to wipe your eyes, or hold your hand?"

"You will. And I will for you. Scully, I'm not going anywhere. Neither are you. I promise you," I said, reaching my hand out to her.

"I just hope you aren't making promises you can't keep," she said, but not before taking my hand, and wrapping her arms around me.

'So do I,' I whispered into her hair, knowing she couldn't hear me.

We sat at the island in the kitchen, her hand in mine, my eyes in hers. I was eating cereal, tasting nothing but her name on my lips. Her hair was all over the place, and I loved it. Most girls I knew would never even come out of their room unless they were completely put together. With Scully, she wasn't afraid to let herself go, let it all hang out. She let me see her at her most vulnerable, and she didn't care, she trusted me enough to do so.

"Mulder, I never officially apologized to you about yesterday. I shouldn't have let Bill shake my faith in you, when you have been nothing but wonderful to me. I know you would never do those things, you'd never even think of doing that to me, and I should have known. I'm sorry I didn't believe you."

"Scully, I don't blame you. I blame Bill," I said, coaxing a smile from her somber face. "It's all right, Scully. He's your brother; you wouldn't think he would lie to you. I'm sorry he did," I said, turning around the apology, pinning it on the real villain.

"He's always been a little over-protective. Every guy I have ever brought home has faced him, some passed, some failed," she said, smiling as I imagined her picturing scared teenage boys running from her brother.

"And me? Did I pass or fail?" I asked, reaching out to take a piece of her hair, running from top to bottom of it, placing my hand on her cheek when I had reached the end.

"Fox Mulder, you could never fail a test that I give. You passed. With flying colors," she said, closing the distance slightly between our lips, bringing hers so close to mine I could taste her breathe in my mouth.

"Your breathe tastes like Mini Wheats," I said, unable to stand it anymore, reaching out my lips to touch hers, both of them brushing softly before she pulled away from me.

"Yours tastes like Cheerios," she said, giggling endearingly, her eyes lighting up with the happiness inside her. I leaned into her again, waiting for another kiss. She pulled away, still unwilling to surrender.

"Are you playing hard to get?" I asked, smiling mischievously, forming an evil plan in my head. "That won't work anymore. I've got you already." I wrapped my arms around her, picking her up and carrying her to the couch. She was giggling so hard, and with every intake of breath for another, I was falling harder.

She grabbed either side of my face, squishing my lips out like a fish. She moved painstakingly slow towards my face, her lips reaching slightly for mine. I tried to break free, desperate for the warmth of her familiar lips on mine. She stopped right before our lips met, removing her hand, testing my willpower. I didn't kiss her. I refrained with every ounce of self-discipline I had. I was going to pass this test too.

"Kiss me, you idiot," she said, her voice barely audible, her breath hot, her heart loud. I obliged, pressing her lips fervently to mine. I had never wanted her so much before, never needed her this much. I pressed into her lips ferociously, my tongue fighting hers.

"Scully," I whispered in her ear, my breathing labored.

"I know," she whispered back, her breathing the same, flooding my ear canal with her breath. We kissed again, my fingers getting tangled in her hair, her fingers squeezing my neck. She was laying on her back on the couch, and I was kneeling next to it, pressing her head into the pillow she was laying on by the pressure of the kiss, by the strain of my desire. My hand moved to her hip, sliding underneath her shirt, caressing her toned stomach. She pulled her lips from mine. "Mulder, not here, not now," she breathed, her voice coming out in gasps.

"No, Scully. Not here. Not ever. Not until you're ready," I whispered, adopting her breathy tone. I rested my head on her stomach, removing my hand and placing it on the side of her thigh, rubbing her leg tenderly. She ran her hand through my hair, her fingers stopping to toy with the hairs at the nape of my neck.

"No more kissing for you. You get too excited," she said, sitting up and pushing my head away playfully.

"And you don't?" I said, leaning in and pecking her cheek softly. She closed her eyes and smiled, waiting for the real kiss. But I stood and began walking away, and when she opened her eyes, her gasped at my disrespect. She ran to me and jumped on my back, the sudden gain in weight unbalancing me and sending me – and Scully on my back – to the floor at the foot of the steps. She and I are laughing so hard we can hardly breathe, air in short supply like it had been moments ago but for a completely different reason.

"Scully, maybe you should stop eating all those puddings," I suggested, grunting as I tried to get up and realizing she was sitting on my back, pinning me to the floor.

"They're nonfat! And sugar-free! Are you calling me fat?" She asked, switching to woman-mode and asking the most known question in the history of all women. In this situation, most men would answer in hurried anxiety, struggling to ease their woman's weight worries. What would happen if…

"Yes?" I said, almost saying it as a question, hoping this wasn't a bad idea. She gasped and looked down at me.

"Jerk!" She yelled, as she started bouncing on top of me, her butt pounding into my back. The air rushed from my lungs, laughter choking me.

"Stop, stop, can't breathe," I gasped between my laughter and suffocation.

"You deserve it, you naughty man," she said, climbing off of my back and placing her hand on my cheek as I sat up, catching my breath.

"You deserve this," I said, placing a very small kiss on her lips.

"That's all I ask for," she said, standing and walking up the stairs, leaving me sitting on the floor, with a very pretty picture of her. "Stop looking at my ass and get up here," she said, not turning around as she reached the top stair and began walking to her room. Who could deny an offer like that? I scrambled up the stairs, hoping that Scully was asking for a little more.


	31. Chapter 31

-SCULLY- 31

I giggled as I pulled him on top of me as we fell onto the bed. His lips met mine as he steadied himself above me, placing his strong hands on the bed on either side of my body. My hand rose to his face, caressing his cheek, moving up into his hair and getting lost, like my common sense did when kissing him. My other hand moved to his chest, running up and down, loving the way he flinched at my touch. I broke from his lips, breathing heavily as he relaxed his tensed arms and slowly lowered his body closer to mine. His lips pressed softly to my cheek, moving slowly with each kiss, creating a trail of kisses to my neck. He buried his lips into my neck, kissing gently at first, then more aggressively.

I sprawled on the bed, curling my toes, shivers wracking my body in desire and passion. He pulled away from me, repositioning so that his crotch was over my stomach, his knees on either side. He leaned in again, his hands rubbing my arms, the shivers intensifying, my goose bumps multiplying.

"Scully," he whispered, his voice strained, his eyes staring wildly into mine, blazing with passion. "I'm losing control," he gasped, my hands on his hips. "I won't be able to stop soon," he said, his lips tickling my ear as he breathed into it.

"Maybe I don't want you to," I whispered back, pushing my lips onto his ear, biting slightly. He moaned, the middle of his shorts pressing into my stomach. I moved my hands from his hips to lower on his body, my hands shaking with longing. I stopped, wondering if I should go where others might have gone before. He opened his eyes, wondering what was stopping me. He saw the look on my face, anxious, pained with desire, and exhilarated. My eyes were glazed over and had been rolling in the back of my head when he had attacked my neck. Unable to stand it, he thrust his hips into my hands, one brushing the other. He moaned, obviously wanting more, wanting me. I moved my hands, linking them around his neck where they were comfortable, where I was comfortable.

"Scully," he pleaded, his voice agonizing. What could I do? I wanted it just as desperately as he did. But how could I know that we weren't moving too fast? How could I know that this was right? Was it? I looked into his eyes, teenage boy hormones having completely taken over his anxious body. Would he be upset if I stopped it? Would I?

"Mulder," I whispered back, pressing myself into my bed, somewhat urgently, trying to get away from him. He sat up, getting off of me, his eyes clearing. "I can't," I said softly.

"Shh," he said, his arms enveloping me, holding me close in a completely different way than he had been. "It's all right," he cooed, soothing me for my own well-being. He was pressing against me, pressing into me, and I pulled away from him, tears starting to leak from my eyes. His face showed hurt, his eyes still quieting his desire.

"Just leave," I said, tears choking. "Please, just go." I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to calm myself. He rushed forwards, wanting to replace my arms with his. I turned away from him. "Stop, please. Just go." It was quiet for a long time, and when I turned around, he was gone, but his pain lingered in the air, mingling with mine.

I woke up in my own tears, first mistaking it for drool until memories of the earlier flooded my fuzzy head. I sat up slowly, pulling my legs up and hugging them to my chest, wishing it was Mulder. I fell apart, dissolving into tears again, resting my head in my hands as tears rushed from my eyes. How could I have told him to leave? How could I have hurt him like that?

There was a small knock on the door, startling me out of my tears. I wiped my eyes, knowing that my eyes were red and puffy, and therefore removing the present tears on my face did nothing to help the situation.

"Dana?" My mother called through the door. My mother. Not Mulder. She sounded concerned, but I didn't feel in any position to ease her worries. Honestly, I felt that her concern was justified, as was my sorrow. "Dana, may I come in?" She asked, and I knew she wouldn't come in if I told her not to. So now, the question was whether or not I wanted her to. "Dana?"

"Come in," I called, not able to say anymore before I was overwhelmed by tears again. I tried to wipe them away again, failing again, and giving up again. My mom stuck her head in the door, and saw me sitting on my bed, hugging my knees, tearstains on my cheeks.

"Dana," my mother said softly, before rushing to my side and wrapping her arms around me tightly. I hugged her back, crying into her shoulder.

"I couldn't. I just couldn't. Mom, what if I ruined it?" I sobbed incoherently, jumbling everything together. It didn't even make any sense to me.

"He loves you, Dana. I know he does. I can see it in his eyes, the way he lights up when you walk in the room, the way he holds you like you fit perfectly into his arms, the way he waits for every word you say like it's what he's living for," my mother said, sighing, getting lost in her own memories. There was the romantic coming out again.

"I know he loves me too, Mom, that's why I can't believe I did it to him. He's not Thom –," I stopped, swallowing, his name catching in my throat and nipping at my heart.

"I shouldn't feel scared around him. He makes me the safest I've ever felt. But I can't give myself to him," I said, looking away from my mother when I said so. It was slightly more than awkward to discuss things such as this with my mother.

"Of course he's not Thomas. He's in this for you, not for him. And if he loves you like I know he does, he'll wait. He knows that you've already given him your heart. Right now, that's enough. Don't beat yourself up, Dana. It'll all be okay," she said, hugging me tighter. My mother would never lie to me. But she – like Mulder I realized with a sinking feeling as his name came to mind – she might make promises that she could not keep. But I hoped – like I did with Mulder's promise – that she wasn't.

"Mulder?" I called through his closed bedroom door, trying to hold back the tears that were still in my throat, their residue still on my face. 'Please open the door. Please don't hate me. Please forgive me.' I begged in my head. 'Please.'

He opened the door slowly, peering out at me, his eyes wide, sad. He saw my face, tear-stained and red, and he saw my eyes, wide and sad, just like his. He stepped out of his room, and his arms enveloped me. I buried my face in his chest, happier in his arms than I had been in my mother's.

"I'm sorry," he said, apologizing needlessly, his voice rough and heartrending. "I moved too fast. I could have ruined everything. You're worth more than that. You deserve more than that. And I'm going to try my hardest to give it to you, even if I'm not worth it. You are. God, I'm so sorry."

"I should be the one apologizing. I shouldn't be so afraid. I know that you're not him. You would never hurt me. I don't want to be afraid. You make me feel safer than I ever have. I want to be ready for you. But I'm not. I'm sorry." I said, my voice breaking along with my will as tears blotched his shirt.

"Don't be. I blame myself. I love you so much," he said, kissing the top of my head, his hand fitting into the small of my back.

"I love you too," I whispered, lifting my face to his, rising on my toes. "Forever." I kissed his lips softly and pulled away, linking our hands together, our hearts already entwined, indefinitely, eternally, forever.


	32. Chapter 32

-MULDER- 32

Two months. Two months, three weeks. Two months, three weeks, four days, and one hour since I had met her. I wondered as I counted on my fingers, tallying, if she counted the integers of time too. She was in my arms again, and I was beginning to get more used to her being in my bed than I'm sure either of us was comfortable with. Her presence was the only thing that helped me sleep at night. She was the cure for my insomnia.

"Scully," I whispered in her ear, curling a lock of her hair around my finger. She groaned softly, barely stirring. "I love you." She opened her eyes and looked right at me, her eyes absent of sleep. It was a wonder she'd been asleep at all.

"I love you, too, you crazy man," she said, sitting up to kiss my lips. "Why did you wake me up? I was dreaming about you," she said, her hand caressing my cheek.

"I always dream about you. Without clothes on," I said, stealing a kiss before jumping off the bed so she couldn't hit me.

"How would you rather see that in real life?" She asked, slipping the strap of her camisole off her shoulder suggestively. I closed my mouth so she wouldn't see me drool. I walked closer to her, and she punched my arm playfully. "That's for being a pig," she said, her eyes narrowed. They softened as she got closer to me, gently pressing our mouths together. "That's because I love you."

"Stop," I said, placing a hand over her mouth to keep her from kissing me again. "We're turning into that couple who do Eskimo and butterfly kisses and have cute little pet names for each other. That couple makes me throw up. And what's more, I promised myself I'd never be that guy."

"What guy? The guy who cares enough about his girlfriend to actually show affection in public," she asked, her left eyebrow arched. I had a feeling this was a trick question.

"Of course not. See, I'll even give you a cute pet name. How's honeybunch?" I asked, picking the first name that came to my mind.

"That's great, poopyhead." She replied, trying to keep the corners of her mouth turned down. I smiled.

"Real mature," I said, wrapping my arms around her.

"You're one to talk," she said, her voice virtually dripping with sarcasm as she closed the distance between our mouths. It had been a while since we'd kissed like this. Kissing like this made me realize how much I missed it, and how much I'd miss her if she didn't come back one day. But she assured me she wouldn't. All I could do was believe her. And kiss her. And hold her. And love her. Like I was doing.

I walked down the stairs, hand running down the wood so worn and smooth it was almost soft. I sighed, nostrils filling with scentless air, and I remembered the smell of Scully, as warm as she was in my arms. I smiled, my hand scratching my head, ruffling my hair, then rushing to my mouth, trying to feel her name on my lips the way I could taste it on my tongue.

I walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge, the sugar-free, non-fat pudding practically stabbing holes in my eyes, releasing uneasiness in my stomach, and more thoughts of Scully sprinting to my brain. I remembered that night, and I could see it as if it were playing out before me, my mind pressing play, aching for the purity of her beautiful face.

My head jerked in the direction of the front door as the deadbolt slid from its locked cage. I pressed up against the wall, pleading invisibility or at least temporary stealth. I slid carefully to the door, poised to strike as soon as it opened. As prepared as I was, I was still shocked beyond reaction by what, or rather who, walked through the Scully's door.

"Hello! Where is my loving family?" A voice that plucked harmonious chords that choirs of angels would have been quite jealous of asked the empty living room and sleeping household. The body that entered the house matched the voice. She turned around and I was face to face with an older Scully, the similarity between the sisters almost frightening.

"Who are you?" She asked, understandably surprised that a pubescent boy stood behind her family's door, ready for anything but her.

"I'm –," I began, but recognition conquered her face as she remembered who I was and why in God's name I was in here.

"The foster kid! Fox, right," she asked, eyes like Scully's looking pointedly into mine, curiosity as obvious as the Scully women's beauty. I certainly felt like a fox with her eyes on me, and the way she was staring, she agreed.

"Mulder, if you don't mind. As you can imagine, the name 'Fox' came hand-in-hand with some teasing as a child, therefore it's somewhat of a tender topic. I prefer Mulder now," I said, cranking the charm past safety limit. She cracked a smile that wasn't nearly as breath-taking as Scully's. The corners of her eyes creased as her cheekbones rose, the look on her face similar to that of the amused expression Scully made on the occasion I made her smile or laugh. It wasn't the exact same though. There was something different. Although it reminded me of Scully, it wasn't her, and it didn't bring warmth to my heart as much as Scully's smiles did.

"Well, well, aren't you a comedian? Cute and funny. Dangerous combination," she warned, her suggestive tone silencing the foreboding. I could be wrong, but I think she had just hinted that she found me somewhat funny and somewhat cute. I'm probably wrong. She was oh, so subtle. More like not at all.

I thought back to Scully, remembering how the only way I could tell that she liked me was when she raised her eyebrow, her left one at me in exasperation, in scorn, in amusement. Her eyes revealed the secret every now and then that she locked inside her. Scully was a much better secret keeper. She was much better at keeping her face passive, her feelings quelled. And she had a much better way with words. And subtlety.

"I thank you for your inconspicuous compliments," I paused, giving her time to squirm as I acted as if I were floundering for her name. She smiled, unfazed by my sick game of pretend.

"Melissa," she whispered, her hand brushing the morning stubble on my cheek, sounding an alarm somewhere in my body, sending goose bumps spilling down it. Her breath was hot on my face, and I took a step back, trying to push perverse images involving the love of my life's sister out of my head. I tried to maintain composure, letting the character I was playing swallow me, concreting my dark mysterious, seductive manner that Melissa seemed quite attracted to.

"I won't forget again," I whispered just as softly, making her as uncomfortable as her words had done me, and I could virtually see chills raking her body, just like her eyes were raking mine.

Footsteps on the stairs broke our intense eye contact and our physical. I stepped farther away from her just as Scully came into view on the last stair.

"Missy!" She screamed, as the image of her sister registered in her brain. Surprise primed her face, but happiness painted over it quickly as she ran to her sister and hugged her, Melissa's face almost going purple. I chuckled inwardly at Scully's enthusiasm.

"How's it been, Danes?" Melissa asked as she was released from the vise of Scully's embrace.

"Pretty…unbelievable. Let's sit down. I have a lot to tell you," Scully said, looking at me lovingly, meaningfully. I returned her expression, smiling, sending rays of love shooting towards her. Melissa didn't miss the exchange. She linked arms with Scully, and as the walked towards the couch, she turned backwards at me and smiled, mischief gleaming like the sun on her face.


End file.
